#416 NullAssignment isn't flexible enough

[D'Arcy Smith]

consider the following code:

final Object x;

if(someCondition)
{
x = null;
}
else
{
x = new Object();
}

The above code does not match the intent of the rule
(at least what I think the intent is) of overwriting a
value with null.

Also consider:

Object x;

x = null;

for(...)
{
if(someCondition)
{
x = something;
break;
}
}

Some people (ok me) don't like to write Object x = null.

I think the rule should be augmented to be something like:

Assigning null to an object is fine if there have been
no prior assignments.

Thanks,

..darcy

[D'Arcy Smith]

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Looks like 3.5 fixes the first case above but not the second
case... my number of PMD warnings just went down :-)

[Tom Copeland]

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Yup, we no longer flag this if it's an assignment to a final variable. I've put a note in that rule about this second case...

Yours,

tom
http://pmdapplied.com/