[cdt-dev] Problem with environment variables

[Jan Baeyens <jan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

I wanted to let you know that there is a problem with the environment 
variables that is very unlikely to happen, but when it does happen is 
very hard to debug.

If you run following code in a cdt managed project you will no longer be 
able to build the project


    IEnvironmentVariable var = new EnvironmentVariable("this will bite 
you", null);
    contribEnv.addVariable(var, confdesc);

the problem is that EnvVarMacro.loadValue (which is being called to 
extend macro's) assumes that the value is not null.

He passes it to isTextList(value,delimiter) who calls 
Pattern.matches(patternStr, str); (str is the value)

Which throws an exception which is caught way up in the call stack in 
CommonBuilder (line 1224 at my pc) which returns a very generic error.


off-course there is very little reason for putting a null in a 
environment variable. In my case I pass a string that was null when 
there is a network inconsistency. I changed it to an empty string and 
all works fine again.

Note that I did not see anything special about the null value in the gui 
(it looks like an empty string)

I have not found any documentation about: "EnvironmentVariable 
supporting null values or not".

IMHO adding a null test in EnvVarMacro.loadValue is the most pragmatic 
solution.


Thanks for the good work.

Jantje