require another set of eyes to look at my code

Hi Guys,

I'm having one of those "Can't see the forest for the trees" moments. I need someone to point out the error of my ways. I'm reading in a ZIP file which contains four files:

keygen_1.0.jar

pnskeywords.dat

keygendep.jar

pns_plugin.xml

I'm reading in the last one named pns_plugin.xml. It looks like this:

I am working with two classes: PluginEntry and PluginHandler. See classes below. When I run the following code:

Note the iteration over the ArrayList. When this prints out it looks like this:

PluginEntries:
Name: keygendep.jar Destination Folder: C:\PNS_1.0\ZipInstaller\lib
Name: keygendep.jar Destination Folder: C:\PNS_1.0\ZipInstaller\lib
Name: keygendep.jar Destination Folder: C:\PNS_1.0\ZipInstaller\lib

It should look like this:

PluginEntries:
Name: keygen_1.0.jar Destination Folder: C:\PNS_1.0\ZipInstaller\plugins
Name: pnskeywords.dat Destination Folder: C:\PNS_1.0\ZipInstaller
Name: keygendep.jar Destination Folder: C:\PNS_1.0\ZipInstaller\lib

What this tells me is that keygendep.jar is the last element read in from the xml file and when class PluginHandler adds each new PluginEntry to the ArrayList, it is overwriting all the elements in the list with the same last element information. I can't figure out why that is? I've gone over the code in DEBUG mode in Eclipse but nothing jumps out at me as to what is going wrong. The println statements tell the tale in the character() method. Everytime I create a new instance of PluginEntry, I also print out the values of the previous PluginEntry from the ArrayList. The previous one is definitely being overwritten. The problem must lie in the PluginHandler class somehow. Please advise.

Alan

package com.personalnetsearch.util;

import java.io.File;

public class PluginEntry
{
  private static String name = "";
  private static File folder = null;
  
  public PluginEntry(String name)
  {
	  PluginEntry.name = name;
  }
  public PluginEntry(String name, File dest)
  {
	  PluginEntry.name = name;
	  PluginEntry.folder = dest;
  }
  public void setName(String value)
  {
	  name = value;
  }
  public String getName()
  {
	  return name;
  }
  public void setDestinationFolder(File file)
  {
	  folder = file;
  }
  public String toString()
  {
	  return "Name: " + name + " Destination Folder: " + folder.getAbsolutePath();
  }
}

//*****************************************************
package com.personalnetsearch.util;

import java.io.File;
import java.util.ArrayList;

import org.xml.sax.*;
import org.xml.sax.helpers.*;

public class PluginHandler extends DefaultHandler
{
	boolean haveName = false;
	boolean haveDestination = false;
	ArrayList<PluginEntry> list = new ArrayList<PluginEntry>();
	int index = -1;
    
    public void startElement(String namespaceURI,String localName,String qName,Attributes atts)throws SAXException
    {
    	System.out.println("Start Element :" + qName);
    	 
		if (qName.equalsIgnoreCase("Name")) {
			haveName = true;
		}
 
		if (qName.equalsIgnoreCase("ExtractionDestination")) {
			haveDestination = true;
		}

}

public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName) throws SAXException 
    {
      System.out.println("End Element :" + qName);     
    }
     
    public void characters(char ch[], int start, int length) throws SAXException
    {     
      if (haveName)
      {
    	String st = new String(ch, start, length);
    	System.out.println("\tName = " + st);
    	index++;
    	list.add( new PluginEntry(st));    	
    	haveName = false;
      }
     
      if (haveDestination)
      {
    	
    	String str = new String(ch,start,length);
    	System.out.println("\tExtractionDestination = " + str);
    	if(str.equalsIgnoreCase("lib"))
    	{
    		PluginEntry pe = list.get(index);
    		System.out.println("\tSetting destination = " + PluginInstaller.LIB);    		
    		pe.setDestinationFolder(new File(PluginInstaller.LIB));
    		System.out.println("\tPluginEntry " + 0 + " " + list.get(0).toString());
    		System.out.println("\tPluginEntry " + 1 + " " + list.get(1).toString());
    		System.out.println("\tPluginEntry " + index + " " + pe.toString());
    	}
    	else if(str.equalsIgnoreCase("plugins"))
    	{
    		PluginEntry pe = list.get(index);
    		System.out.println("\tSetting destination = " + PluginInstaller.PLUGINS);    		
    		pe.setDestinationFolder(new File(PluginInstaller.PLUGINS));
    		System.out.println("\tPluginEntry " + index + " " + pe.toString());
    	}
    	else if(str.equalsIgnoreCase("root"))
    	{
    		PluginEntry pe = list.get(index);
    		System.out.println("\tSetting destination = " + PluginInstaller.ROOT);
    		pe.setDestinationFolder(new File(PluginInstaller.ROOT));
    		System.out.println("\tPluginEntry " + 0 + " " + list.get(0).toString());
    		System.out.println("\tPluginEntry " + index + " " + pe.toString());
    	}
    	haveDestination = false;
      }
    }

public void endDocument()
    {
    	System.out.println("PluginHandler.endDocument");
    	for(int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++)
        {
      	  System.out.println("\t" + list.get(i).toString());
        }  
    }

}

Alan Shiers wrote:when class PluginHandler adds a new PluginEntry to the ArrayList it is overwriting all the elements in the list with the same last element information.

As soon as I saw this I knew I was searching for the word "static". And sure enough, your class-level variables in PluginEntry are declared static. So all PluginEntry instances share the same value of name and destination folder.

Damn your good! You were right. I got rid of the "static" declarations in PluginEntry. It worked fine after that. Lesson learned.

Thanks,

Alan