openrewrite / openrewrite/rewrite-static-analysis

Empty arrays and collections should be returned instead of null.`RSPEC-1168`

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recipe
Dominant language
Java
Stars
62
Forks
112
Avg merge
1d 19h
Merged PRs (30d)
40

Description

Possibly dangerous and against "do not harm"


public List<String> getList(){
List<String> l = new ArrayList<>();
l.add("hello");
return l;
}

List<String> l = getList();

if (l == null) {
  
// will never happen after this transformation

}

https://rules.sonarsource.com/java/quickfix/RSPEC-1168

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading the RSPEC-1168 specification linked in the issue and then inspect the existing Java recipes in this repository for the relevant implementation and tests. Done means the analysis identifies methods that return null instead of empty arrays or collections and provides the expected fix behavior, with tests covering the reported example.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
devtools
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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