MutablePublicArray (original) (raw)

MutablePublicArray

Non-empty arrays are mutable, so this `public static final` array is not a constant and can be modified by clients of this class. Prefer an ImmutableList, or provide an accessor method that returns a defensive copy.

The problem

Nonzero-length arrays are mutable. Declaring one public static final indicates that the developer expects it to be a constant, which is not the case. Making itpublic is especially dangerous since clients of this code can modify the contents of the array.

There are two ways to fix this problem:

1. Refactor the array to an ImmutableList.
2. Make the array private and add a public method that returns a copy of the private array.

See Effective Java 3rd Edition §15 for more details.

Suppression

Suppress false positives by adding the suppression annotation @SuppressWarnings("MutablePublicArray") to the enclosing element.