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 According to The Java Language Specification (JLS), §15According to the Java Language Specification Section 15.7, "Evaluation Order" [JLS 2015]:

The Java programming language guarantees that the operands of operators appear to be evaluated in a specific evaluation order, namely, from left to right.

On the other hand, 15§15.7.3, "Evaluation Respects Parentheses and Precedence" states adds:

Java programming language implementations must respect the order of evaluation as indicated explicitly by parentheses and implicitly by operator precedence.

These When an expression contains side effects, these two requirements can be counter-intuitive when expressions contain side-effectsyield unexpected results. Evaluation of the operands proceeds left - to - right, without regard to operator precedence rules and indicative parentheses; evaluation of the operators, however, obeys precedence rules and parentheses. Best practice is to avoid using expressions that contain multiple side-effects. When used, such expressions must be carefully structured to respect the left-to-right evaluation order

Expressions must not write to memory that they subsequently read and also must not write to any memory twice. Note that memory reads and writes can occur either directly in the expression from assignments or indirectly through side effects in methods called in the expression.

Noncompliant Code Example (Order of Evaluation)

This noncompliant code example shows how side - effects in expressions can lead to unanticipated outcomes. The programmer intends to write access control logic based on different threshold levelsthresholds. Each user has a rating that must be above the threshold to be granted access. As shown, a simple function can calculate the rating. The get() method is expected to return a non-zero factor value for authorized users who are authorized, and a zero value for those who are unauthorized users.

In this case, the programmer expects the rightmost subexpression to evaluate The programmer in this example incorrectly assumes that the rightmost subexpression is evaluated first because the * operator has a higher precedence than the + operator . The parentheses reinforce this belief. These ideas lead and because the subexpression is parenthesized. This assumption leads to the incorrect conclusion that the right hand side evaluates to zero whenever the get() method returns zero. The programmer expects number to be that number is assigned 0 because of the rightmost number = get() subexpression. Consequently, the test in the left-hand subexpression is expected to reject the unprivileged user because the rating value (of number) is below the threshold of 10.

However, the program grants access to the unauthorized user because evaluation of the side-effect-infested subexpressions follows the left-to-right ordering rule.

class BadPrecedence {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int number = 17;
    int[] threshold = new int[20];
    threshold[0] = 10;
    number = (number > threshold[0] ? 0 : -2) 
             + ((31 * ++number) * (number = get()));
    // ... 
    if (number == 0) {
      System.out.println("Access granted");
    } else {
      System.out.println("Denied access"); // number = -2
    }
  }

  public static int get() {
    int number = 0;
    // Assign number to non zerononzero value if authorized, else 0
    return number;
  }
}

Compliant Solution

Noncompliant Code Example (Order of Evaluation)

This noncompliant code example This compliant solution reorders the previous expression so that the left-to-right evaluation order of the operands corresponds with the programmer's intent. Although this code performs as expected, it still represents poor practice by writing to number three times in a single expression.

number = ((31 * ++number) * (number=get())) + (number > threshold[0] ? 0 : -2);

Although this solution solves the problem, it continues to represent poor practice by using expressions with more than one side-effect. It also depends on the left-right ordering for evaluation of side-effects.

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Compliant Solution (Order of Evaluation)

This compliant solution uses equivalent code with no side -effectseffects and performs not more than one write per expression. The resulting expression can be reordered without concern for the evaluation order of the component expressions, making the code easier to understand and maintain.

final int authnum = get();
number = ((31 * (number + 1)) * authnum) + (authnum > threshold[0] ? 0 : -2);

Exceptions

EXP05-J-EX0: The increment and decrement operators (++) and (--) read a numeric variable, and then assign a new value to the variable. Although these operators read and modify a value, they are well-understood and are an exception to this rule. This exception does not apply if a value modified by an increment or decrement operator is subsequently read or written.

EXP05-J-EX1: The conditional-or || and conditional-and && operators have well-understood semantics. Writes followed by subsequent writes or reads do not violate this rule if they occur in different operands of || or &&. Consider the following code example:

public void exampleMethod(InputStream in) {
  int i;
  // Process chars until '' found
  while ((i = in.read()) != -1 && i != '\'' && 
         (i = in.read()) != -1 && i != '\'') {
    // ...
  }

}

This rule is not violated by the controlling expression of the while loop because the rule is not violated by any operand to the conditional-and && operators. The subexpressions (i = in.read()) != -1 have one assignment and one side effect (the reading of a character from in).

Risk Assessment

Failure to understand the evaluation order of expressions containing side effects can result in unexpected output.

Automated Detection

Detection of all expressions involving both side - effects and also multiple operator precedence levels is straightforward. Determining the correctness of such uses is infeasible in the general case; heuristic warnings could be useful.

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this guideline on the CERT website.

Related Guidelines

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Related Guidelines

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Bibliography

\[[JLS 2005|AA. Bibliography#JLS 05]\] [Section 15.7|http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/expressions.html#15.7] "Evaluation Order" and [15.7.3|http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/expressions.html#15.7.3] "Evaluation Respects Parentheses and Precedence"

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Image Added Image Added Image AddedImage Removed      04. Expressions (EXP)      EXP10-J. Avoid side-effects in assertions