RFR JDK-8209553: ExceptionInInitializerError can have a default detail message if the cause is given (original) (raw)

David Holmes david.holmes at oracle.com
Thu Aug 16 22:22:06 UTC 2018

On 17/08/2018 1:18 AM, mandy chung wrote:

On 8/15/18 11:00 PM, David Holmes wrote: Hi Mandy,

Not a review - sorry :) On 16/08/2018 7:46 AM, mandy chung wrote: ExceptionInInitializerError(Throwable cause) sets the detail message to null.  It'd be helpful to include a detail message rather than null as in Throwable(Throwable cause) that constructs a new throwable with a default message cause==null ? null : cause.toString().

This would help troubleshooting of writing new bootstrap methods where VM currently asserts non-null linkage error message [1] where there are other solutions such as constructing the message in the VM or removing the assert. I think that's just a bug in the VM code making inappropriate assumptions! There shouldn't have to be a detail message, especially in a wrapping exception like ExceptionInInitializerError! It only gets thrown because some other exception was thrown, there's really no more detail for the EIIE itself. Promoting the cause's detail message to be the detail message of the EIIE just seems wrong to me. I think even VM removes the assert, I don't see how EIIE includes the detail message is wrong?  It's consistent with the Throwable(Throwable cause) constructor.

I think it is wrong because the message is not that of the EIIE but that of the original exception.

If EIIE must have a detail message then that should just be something explicit like:

Caused by :

Unlike general Throwables that may or may not have a cause, a true EIIE must always have a cause when thrown by the JVM.

David

Did this come about through the new code that saves the original cause of the EIIE so that it can be reported when the subsequent NoClassDefFoundError is thrown due to the class being in the erroneous state? (I don't recall if that actually got pushed.) I am not sure but I don't think so.  I ran into this when I develop the bootstrap methods.  I think this is a good EIIE clean up. Mandy

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