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Identify record that is culprit - coding practices

Is method chaining good?
I am not against functional programming that uses method chaining a lot, but against a herd mentality where people mindlessly run behind something that is new.
The example, if I am processing a list of items using stream programming and need to find out the exact row that resulted into throwing NullPointerException.
private void test() {
List<User> aList = new ArrayList<>();
// fill aList with some data
aList.stream().forEach(x -> doSomethingMeaningFul(x.getAddress()));
}
private void doSomethingMeaningFul(Address x) {
// Do something
}
So in the example above if any object in list is null, it will lead to NullPointerException while calling x.getAddress() and come out, without giving us a hook to identify a User record which has this problem.
I may be missing something that offers this feature in stream programming, any help is appreciated.
Edit 1:
NPE is just an example, but there are several other RuntimeExceptions that could occur. Writing filter would essentially mean checking for every RTE condition based on the operation I am performing. And checking for every operation will become a pain.
To give a better idea about what I mean following is the snippet using older methods; I couldn't find any equivalent with streams / functional programming methods.
List<User> aList = new ArrayList<>();
// Fill list with some data
int counter = 0;
User u = null;
try {
for (;counter < aList.size(); counter++) {
u = aList.get(counter);
u.doSomething();
int result = u.getX() / u.getY();
}
} catch(Exception e) {
System.out.println("Error processing at index:" + counter + " with User record:" + u);
System.out.println("Exception:" + e);
}
This will be a boon during the maintenance phase(longest phase) pointing exact data related issues which are difficult to reproduce.
**Benefits:**
- Find exact index causing issue, pointing to data
- Any RTE is recorded and analyzed against the user record
- Smaller stacktrace to look at

Is method chaining good?
As so often, the simple answer is: it depends.
When you
know what you are doing
are be very sure that elements will never be null, thus the chance for an NPE in such a construct is (close to) 0
and the chaining of calls leads to improved readability
then sure, chain calls.
If any of the above criteria isn't clearly fulfilled, then consider not doing that.
In any case, it might be helpful to distribute your method calls on new lines. Tools like IntelliJ actually give you advanced type information for each line, when you do that (well, not always, see my own question ;)
From a different perspective: to the compiler, it doesn't matter much if you chain call. That really only matters to humans. Either for readability, or during debugging.

There are a few aspects to this.
1) Nulls
It's best to avoid the problem of checking for nulls, by never assigning null. This applies whether you're doing functional programming or not. Unfortunately a lot of library code does expose the possibility of a null return value, but try to limit exposure to this by handling it in one place.
Regardless of whether you're doing FP or not, you'll find you get a lot less frustrated if you never have to write null checks when calling your own methods, because your own methods can never return null.
An alternative to variables that might be null, is to use Java 8's Optional class.
Instead of:
public String myMethod(int i) {
if(i>0) {
return "Hello";
} else {
return null;
}
}
Do:
public Optional<String> myMethod(int i) {
if(i>0) {
return Optional.of("Hello");
} else {
return Optional.empty();
}
Look at Optional Javadoc to see how this forces the caller to think about the possibility of an Optional.empty() response.
As a bridge between the worlds of "null represents absent" and "Optional.empty() represents absent", you can use Optional.ofNullable(val) which returns Empty when val == null. But do bear in mind that Optional.empty() and Optional.of(null) are different values.
2) Exceptions
It's true that throwing an exception in a stream handler doesn't work very well. Exceptions aren't a very FP-friendly mechanism. The FP-friendly alternative is Either -- which isn't a standard part of Java but is easy to write yourself or find in third party libraries: Is there an equivalent of Scala's Either in Java 8?
public Either<Exception, Result> meaningfulMethod(Value val) {
try {
return Either.right(methodThatMightThrow(val));
} catch (Exception e) {
return Either.left(e);
}
}
... then:
List<Either<Exception, Result>> results = listOfValues.stream().map(meaningfulMethod).collect(Collectors.toList());
3) Indexes
You want to know the index of the stream element, when you're using a stream made from a List? See Is there a concise way to iterate over a stream with indices in Java 8?

In your test() function you are creating an emptylist List<User> aList = new ArrayList<>();
And doing for each on it. First add some element to
aList
If you want to handle null values you can add .filter(x-> x != null) this before foreach it will filter out all null value
Below is code
private void test() {
List<User> aList = new ArrayList<>();
aList.stream().filter(x-> x != null).forEach(x -> doSomethingMeaningFul(x.getAddress()));
}
private void doSomethingMeaningFul(Address x) {
// Do something
}

You can write a black of code in streams. And you can find out the list item which might result in NullPointerException. I hope this code might help
private void test() {
List<User> aList = new ArrayList<>();
aList.stream().forEach(x -> {
if(x.getAddress() != null)
return doSomethingMeaningFul(x.getAddress())
else
system.out.println(x+ "doesn't have address");
});
}
private void doSomethingMeaningFul(Address x) {
// Do something
}
If you want you can throw NullPointerException or custom excption like AddressNotFoundException in the else part

How to Create a JUnit Test of a List<Overview>

I am currently stuck trying to create a unit test for this piece of code I have. I honestly can't figure out at all how to create a unit test for these lines of code. I have looked multiple places online and couldn't find anything. Its probably just because I don't understand unit test so I can't figure out how to create this one but could someone help me please?
public List<Overview> findOverviewByStatus(String status) throws CustomMongoException {
List<Overview> scenarioList = new ArrayList<Overview>();
LOGGER.info("Getting Scenario Summary Data for - {}", status);
Query query = new Query(Criteria.where("status").is(status));
if (mongoTemplate == null)
throw new CustomMongoException("Connection issue - Try again in a few minutes",
HttpStatus.FAILED_DEPENDENCY);
LOGGER.info("Running Query - {}", query);
scenarioList = mongoTemplate.find(query.with(new Sort(Sort.Direction.DESC, "lastUpdatedDate")), Overview.class);
return scenarioList;
}

So you want to unit test the method. Start with pretending you don't know what the code looks like (black box testing).
What happens if you call it with status of null, and then status of empty string?
What are some status string that return expected values?
Add all these as asserts to your test method to make sure that if someone changes this method in the future the unit test makes sure that it returns the expected result.
That is all a unit test usually does, makes sure that the code behaves in a predictable way and safeguard against change that violates a contract you created for the method when you wrote it.
For example:
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.junit.Test;
public class MyObjectTest {
#Test
public void testMyObjectMethod() {
// Create the object that contains your method (not in the sample you provided)
MyObjectToTest obj = new MyObjectToTest();
// Check that for a null status you get some result (assuming you want this)
Assert.assertNotNull(obj.findOverviewByStatus(null));
// Lets assume that a null status returns an empty array, add a check for it
Assert.assertTrue("null parameter size should be 0", obj.findOverviewByStatus(null).size() == 0);
//etc...
}
}

How do I access the first non null term of a List in Java?

So I have a method (of which I can't change the parameters, or else this could have been made easier through HashMaps...more on this later), that passes an item as a parameter. Now I have a list of instances from this other class, of which one of its attributes is of the same type of this item, and I want to find the instances in the list which correspond to this item (of which there should be only one). This is what I did to find this:
List<Instance> instances = ...
public static void checkItems(Item i) {
List<Instance> n = new ArrayList<>();
instances.forEach(p -> n.add(p.i == i ? p : null));
Instance currentInstance = n.get(0);
//Instance currentInstance = instances.stream().filter(p -> p.i == i).collect(Collectors.toList()).get(0);
}
You'll probably notice two things straight up:
I used a conditional operator which adds a null value to the list when the condition isn't passed
My commented code which was another attempt to solve this issue
So in the first case, I put null because it requires you to put something, and a null value is probably easier to work with, which is why the question arises: How do I access the first non-null value in a list (without resorting to iterating over the entire list to find it...)?
You may notice that I just assign the first value of the list with n.get(0) to currentInstance, because I know that only one value will have passed the test. However, due to some other code that I apply to currentInstance, this value cannot be null.
Just a note on the second point: the way I tried to solve it with streams actually works exactly as planned, except that for some reason the list of instances recovered is not a direct copy of the original instances. This resulted in the values of some of the attributed to have been reset to default values, therefore rendering this method useless.
EDIT: I just wanted to mention that the streams method wasn't working because of some silly mistake that I made in another class, there was nothing wrong with the code so I'll be using that bit to solve my problem :D

If you know that only one p passes the test, I don't know what the point of creating a list with a load of null values plus p is.
Your problem seems to stem from wanting to use forEach. In my opinion, you should almost always use a for loop in preference to forEach. With a simple for loop you can just use break when the item is found.
In detail:
Instance p = null;
for (Instance q : instances) {
if (q.i == i) {
p = q;
break;
}
}
if (p == null)
throw new IllegalStateException(); // It wasn't there.
// Do something with p.

You could do it this way:
Instance currentInstance = instances.stream()
.filter(p -> p.i == i)
.findFirst()
.get(); // you can use get if you are sure there's one instance
The predicate p -> p.i == i seems suspicious. Why not using equals() instead?

As described, this would normally be solved with streams in the following way:
Optional<Instance> first =
instances.stream().filter(p -> p.i == i).findFirst();
(of which there should be only one)
Of which there definitely is only one, or of which there might be more than one. (And if there's more than one, then what? Is that an error?) It sounds like it might be that you should have a Set<Instance>, not a List<Instance>. Just an observation.

You can do it like
instances.forEach(p -> {
if (p.i == i) n.add(p);
});

A List became empty without modifying it in java

Currently, I'm getting stuck with what it seems to be an unexpected error.
I'm programming with the java language, using eclipse as IDE.
The List in question is declared as follows :
private final List<Integer> resList;
Using the "Watchpoint" feature of eclipse while debugging the program, I've seen the following process :
After returning the resList List two times, and before returning it for the third time, the List became suddenly empty.
If anyone have a suggestion to give me in order to fix that problem, I would be very pleased ?
Concerning the code, I posted all the methods that access the resList list and are invoked in the program :
Here is the first One :
public CloudInformationService(String name) throws Exception {
super(name);
resList = new LinkedList<Integer>();
arList = new LinkedList<Integer>();
gisList = new LinkedList<Integer>();
}
And the second one :
public void processEvent(SimEvent ev) {
int id = -1; // requester id
switch (ev.getTag()) {
...
// A resource is requesting to register.
case CloudSimTags.REGISTER_RESOURCE:
resList.add((Integer) ev.getData());
break;
...
}
}
And finally, The third one :
private static CloudInformationService cis;
public static List<Integer> getCloudResourceList() {
if (cis == null) {
return null;
}
return cis.getList();// The implementation of this method is listed below
}
public List<Integer> getList() {
return resList;
}
Thank you in advance.

Step 1: use ctrl+alt+H to look up references to resList and look for methods calling remove, clear, removeAll. If there are too many methods using resList move on to Step 2.
Step 2: Set breakpoints in the CloudInformationServices constructor, when hit, set up breakpoints in LinkedList/AbstractList (in the JDK) in all remove, clear, removeAll methods. In the breakpoints view, right click on resList and choose instance breakpoints. Pick all your remove, clear, removeAll breakpoints and continue execution. Now you'll get a breakpoint hit and can observe from where the list is being emptied.
Without any more code there isn't much help you can get I'm afraid.

Best approach to refactor this java snippet

I was told it is not a good style to call potentially costly methods for boolean expressions (getSupercategories()).
private final SuperCategoriesResolver<ProductModel> catResolver = new SuperCategoriesResolver<ProductModel>() {
#Override
public Set<CategoryModel> getSuperCategories(final CategoryModel item) {
return item == null || item.getSupercategories() == null ? Collections.EMPTY_SET
: new LinkedHashSet<CategoryModel>(
item.getSupercategories());
}
};
As well that getSupercategories() is potentially dangerous since it's backed by a relation attribute which might not be coming from local data members (item is sent as a parameter to a public method in this class and after wards is sent to getSuperCategories() which is overriden in the same class when declaring catResolver).
Is this a better approach to tackle the argument above?
private final SuperCategoriesResolver<ProductModel> catResolver = new SuperCategoriesResolver<ProductModel>() {
#Override
public Set<CategoryModel> getSuperCategories(final ProductModel item) {
if (item != null) {
Set<CategoryModel> superCategories = (Set<CategoryModel>) item
.getSupercategories();
if (superCategories != null)
return superCategories;
}
return Collections.EMPTY_SET;
}
};
Where I first verify that item is not null. if it is, then a return empy_set if not then I called the costly method and get the collection and just if it is not null return the collection with elements.
Thank u very much for your advice.

It is likely to get more efficient to call getSupercategories() once instead of twice if it does any computation.
Do you need to return a copy of this set? You do in the first example but not the second.

Second approach is indeed faster because there is only one call to the getSupercategories method if item is not null. However, in your second approach, you no longer create a LinkedHashSet instance -- which means it will behave differently (though faster).
This sounds more like performance optimization as opposed to refactoring. Usually when you refactor something, there is a "factor" in there somwhere, that trims the code down by eliminating redundancies.

Nulls are your problem. Can you make a refactoring to push nulls away?
For example, you could refactor your code to make item.getSuperCategories never return null? Or do you need to distinguish between the empty set and null?
Similarly, why are you passing null into this method? If you can eliminate that scenario then the code just becomes a one liner.