Null point exception in StringEncoder of Netty 3.5.1

[irwinmc]

Netty StringEncoder:

...
@OverRide
protected Object encode(
ChannelHandlerContext ctx, Channel channel, Object msg) throws Exception {
if (!(msg instanceof String)) {
return msg;
}
return copiedBuffer(ctx.getChannel().getConfig().getBufferFactory().getDefaultOrder(), (String) msg, charset);
}
...

NettyUtils:
ChannelBuffer strBuffer = (ChannelBuffer) super.encode(null, null, msg);

The ChannelHandlerContext can not be null.

My version of writeString():

public static ChannelBuffer writeString(String msg) {
    ChannelBuffer buffer = null;
    try {
        ChannelBuffer stringBuffer = ChannelBuffers.dynamicBuffer();
        stringBuffer.writeBytes(msg.getBytes(CharsetUtil.UTF_8));
        int length = stringBuffer.readableBytes();
        ChannelBuffer lengthBuffer = ChannelBuffers.buffer(2);
        lengthBuffer.writeShort(length);
        buffer = ChannelBuffers.wrappedBuffer(lengthBuffer, stringBuffer);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        LOG.error("Error occurred while trying to write string to buffer: {}", e);
    }
    return buffer;
}

OR, which version of netty does not have this problem?...

[menacher]

Jetserver is using 3.3.1.Final. This one does not seem to have the problem. I had requested Netty team long time back if they could make their encoding/decoding logic to be more re-usable, seems we are going in opposite direction!
Thanks for pointing it out, I will put in the fix you provided.

[irwinmc]

:p I'm trying to use netty 4.x. But there are so many difference between 3.x and 4.x.

[irwinmc]

BTW, may I ask another question:
I use jetserver send data to flex client by amfEncoder, no big problem using netty 3.5.1, but if I change netty to a different version (3.5.9 e.g.), some strange execption will be thrown. "unknown amf type".
Is it caused by BlazeDS or netty ?

[menacher]

Without checking its hard to say. If you check the jetserver unit test cases, you can see usage of a DecoderEmbedder and EncoderEmbedder provided by netty. Simulate a pipeline using these and use a netty version in which its not working and try it out. In the mean time I will see if my flash client works for these versions of Netty.

[menacher]

I have checked in the fix for NPE occurring in later versions of Netty for string encoder/decoder. Binaries are not updated, please take latest code and build.

[irwinmc]

Thanks!

[menacher]

Could you attach an example java object you are serializing to amf? I can run a test case and see whats messing up.