Earlier/LaterSubtypes ordering constraint supports only supertypes from SpotBugs itself

[sewe]

The following ordering constraints

<SplitPass>
    <EarlierSubtypes super="org.example.MyDetector" />
    <Later class="org.example.PostMyDecectors" />
</SplitPass>

will fail at runtime with an edu.umd.cs.findbugs.PluginException (Unknown class org.example.MyDetector in constraint selector node). The problem apparently is that PluginLoader uses Class.forName(String) rather than the three-argument version which could use the class loader from PluginLoader.classLoader rather than the class loader PluginLoader itself has been loaded with.

[sewe]

Considering doing a pull request for this at the moment.

This raises the question: Do we have a test harness in place to test that SpotBugs’s plugin mechanism works as expected (as opposed to a test harness for individual detectors)?

[sewe]

Considering doing a pull request for this at the moment.

This raises the question: Do we have a test harness in place to test that SpotBugs’s plugin mechanism works as expected (as opposed to a test harness for individual detectors)?

Pull request is ready. Testing has been done manually, however, in a scenario akin to the EarlierSubtypes/@super = "org.example.MyDetector" case above.

[sewe]

Thanks for merging the pull request.