Re: Suggestion for an improvement... ("database" part missing in URI)

Yes, you are correct, it shouldn't NPE when you don't put the database
in

Dave 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-jdbc-owner@postgresql.org 
> [mailto:pgsql-jdbc-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Haeberlen
> Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 1:43 PM
> To: pgsql-jdbc@postgresql.org
> Subject: [JDBC] Suggestion for an improvement... ("database" 
> part missing in URI)
> 
> 
> Hello list, especially hello developers,
> 
> I am new to PostgreSQL and I tried the Postgresql jdbc driver for the 
> first time today, so please bear with me if the following 
> sounds silly:
> 
> I have a suggestion for a small but probably helpful 
> improvement for the next release:
> 
> When I omit the "database" part in the database URI used in 
> 
> DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:postgresql://hostname/databa
> se", ... )
> 
> the error message is not very helpful:
> 
> ----------------------------- snip 
> -------------------------------------
> Something unusual has occured to cause the driver to fail. 
> Please report this exception: Exception: 
> java.lang.NullPointerException Stack Trace:
> 
> java.lang.NullPointerException
>         at 
> org.postgresql.Connection.openConnection(Connection.java:155)
>         at org.postgresql.Driver.connect(Driver.java:149)
>         at 
> java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:517)
>         at 
> java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:177)
>         at testpgsql.main(testpgsql.java:13)
> End of Stack Trace
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> 
> and on the postmaster's stderr you get
> 
> DEBUG:  pq_recvbuf: unexpected EOF on client connection
> DEBUG:  incomplete startup packet
> 
> This had me searching for some obscure error in my setup 
> (networking, db access permissions, and all that) for several 
> hours until I finally 
> discovered that all that was missing was indeed the database name...
> 
> Couldn't this error be caught right at the beginning when the 
> URI is read?
> 
> I guess this might be a quite common error and I'd say it 
> would be a lot more "user-friendly" (well, ok, programmer 
> friendly) if there could be an 
> exception with a more meaningful message like for example 
> "database name 
> missing in URI" or at least "invalid URI" instead of a 
> SQLException triggered 
> by a NullPointerException...
> 
> Anyhow, I hope this message might at least be useful for 
> others and save them some time when they make the same mistake :-)
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Thomas
> 
> 
> -- 
> Thomas Haeberlen
> Rechenzentrum Universitaet Stuttgart (RUS) 		
> Abteilung Informationsdienste  
> Allmandring 30 , D-70569 Stuttgart
> Email: haeberlen@rus.uni-stuttgart.de
> Phone: +49 711 685 47 19 Fax: +49 711 678 76 26
> 
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