The Daily WTF

We’ve all seen the empty catch block, the “swallow errors and ignore them”. David sends us a “superior” example of that anti-pattern, with several bonuses to make it even more of a WTF.

/** * Insert the method’s description here. * @param bean java.lang.Object * @param bean_template java.lang.StringBuffer * @param bufXML java.lang.StringBuffer */ protected static void appendBeanTemplate(Object bean, StringBuffer bufXML) { int iEndTag; StringBuffer xmlTemplate = new StringBuffer(); try { iEndTag = bufXML.toString().lastIndexOf(“</” + getClassName(bean) + “>”); writeChildBeanDescription(bean, xmlTemplate); bufXML.insert(iEndTag, xmlTemplate.toString()); } catch (Exception e) { try { throw new Exception(“Error creating xml bean description.”); } catch (Exception ex) { } } }

Taking it from the top, we start with an incomplete JavaDoc comment. “Insert the method’s description here”. Then we accept a parameter called bufXML, but it’s a StringBuffer, not an actual XML object, which sets us up for the ugly, hideous, “please don’t” string mangling approach

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