Exception in getIndex() method DefaultKeyedValues.java

Submitted by Mark Parmenter
Email: mark <dot> parmenter <at> mwaintel <dot> com

This is the following code:

public int getIndex(Comparable key) {
if (key == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Null 'key' argument.");
}
int i = 0;
Iterator iterator = this .data.iterator();
while (iterator.hasNext()) {
KeyedValue kv = (KeyedValue) iterator.next();
if (kv.getKey().equals(key)) { //<---------------- THIS LINE IS THE PROBLEM
return i;
}
i++;
}
return -1; // key not found
}

Since we know that key cannot be null in the line indicated above, it should be the object upon which the equals() method is called. Substituting this line would prevent the NullPointerException that this code currently generates:

if (key.equals(kv.getKey())) { //key cannot be null given the check performed at the beginning of this method