Re: java.lang.String.replaceFirst from IBM VM throws NPE

Hi Alexey,

ok, Ive recreated your problem using the latest snapshot and VME. 
Essentially the code at 
modules/kernel/src/main/java/java/lang/String.java is the same as that 
in the VME kernel.jar. Looking in there (these calls can also be seen if 
the test is run within a debugger), we see that the replaceFirst(String, 
String) implementation is:

public String replaceFirst(String expr, String substitute) {
   return Pattern.compile(expr).matcher(this).replaceFirst(substitute);
}

Unfortunately the implementation of Pattern at 
modules/regex/src/main/java/java/util/regex/Pattern.java is only a stub 
(as HARMONY-39 has not yet been accepted into the Harmony SVN 
repository) and as such just returns null. Thus when we try to 
dereference the return from Pattern.compile(expr) we receive a 
NullPointerException. Once the regex in HARMONY-39 is moved into SVN 
this should go away.


As a sideline, I think we should be able to move String.java out of 
kernel entirely anyway. We already have an implementation at 
modules/kernel/src/main/java/java/lang/String.java, and the only VM 
specific code in String is the intern() method. This method could simply 
be redirected to call VM.intern(String), a class which is within kernel, 
and then String.java can be moved into LUNI. It also means that the VM 
writer(s) need not implement the rest of the String class unnecessarily. 
Sound good?


Alexey Petrenko wrote:
> We got problem with Harmony on IBM VM on Windows.
> java.lang.String.replaceFirst throws NPE.
>
> Here is the testcase:
> public class Test {
>     public static void main(String args[]) {
>         String xx = "test";
>         xx = xx.replaceFirst("t","z");
>     }
> }
>
> Here is the stack trace:
> C:\Work\Harmony\Sources\Harmony\deploy\jre\bin>java Test
> Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
>         at java.lang.String.replaceFirst(String.java:1642)
>         at Test.main(Test.java:4)
>
> Since IBM VM is not an OpenSource I can not check java.lang.String for
> the cause of this problem :(
>
> Can we ask IBM guys somehow to fix this issue?
>
> --
> Alexey A. Petrenko
> Intel Middleware Products Division
>   

--
Oliver Deakin
IBM United Kingdom Limited