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Bug 104526

Summary:	Support highlighting of auto boxing and unboxing
Product:	java	Reporter:	_ sandipchitale <sandipchitale>
Component:	Editor	Assignee:	Dusan Balek <dbalek>
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	blocker	CC:	jrojcek, markiewb
Priority:	P3
Version:	6.x
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Issue Type:	ENHANCEMENT	Exception Reporter:

Description _ sandipchitale 2007-05-22 17:01:23 UTC

JDK 5 introduces the auto boxing and unboxing feature. The compiler silently 
applies the boxing and unboxing of primitive types to corresponding object 
types and back in many places (e.g. int->Integer and Integer->int). This helps 
the user many times. However it also introduces strange NPEs at run time while 
auto-unboxing, which puzzles the user completely. It may be that javac must 
warn the user of that possibility at least once in a file. But that is a 
separate enhancement against javac. This and other related issues with auto 
boxing and unboxing were discussed in one of the talks at JavaOne also.

I think with the help of the Java editor infrastructure, it should be possible 
to support a mode in the Java editor to show all the expressions where the 
auto boxing and unboxing is happening. There should be a way to control 
showing/hiding of this highlight. I think we should use a subtle but noticable 
highlight for this.

IMHO this should not be mixed in with the Mark Occurrences mode as someone 
(don't recall who) suggested - as there could be overlaps. Also highlight auto 
boxing/unboxing is not caret sensitive.

Comment 1 _ sandipchitale 2007-11-19 19:24:33 UTC

The Highlight Boxing Unboxing Varargs module
(http://plugins.netbeans.org/PluginPortal/faces/PluginDetailPage.jsp?pluginid=4130) implements this functionality.

Comment 2 stephan_bauer 2014-07-17 07:08:21 UTC

Hi Folks,

the plugin that is referenced from the comment before is experimental and obviously not maintained for NB 7/8.

I really think that this feature should be added to NB asap!

best regards,
Stephan