SCP03-J. Do not reuse names

Reuse of names leads to obscuration or shadowing, that is, the names in the current scope mask those defined elsewhere. This creates ambiguity especially when the originals need to be used and also leaves the code hard to maintain. The problem gets further aggravated when the reused name is defined in a different package.

According to [[JLS 05]] 6.3.2 Obscured Declarations:

A simple name may occur in contexts where it may potentially be interpreted as the name of a variable, a type or a package. In these situations, the rules of §6.5 specify that a variable will be chosen in preference to a type, and that a type will be chosen in preference to a package.

Thus a variable can obscure a type or a package and a type can obscure a package name. Shadowing on the other hand refers to masking of variables, fields, types, method parameters, labels and exception handler parameters in a subscope. Both these differ from hiding wherein a member that should have been inherited by a subclass is forgone in lieu of a locally declared subclass member, that assumes the same name.

As a tenet, do not:

• Reuse the name of a superclass
• Reuse the name of an interface
• Reuse the name of a field defined in a superclass
• Reuse the name of a field that appears in the same method (in some different scope)
• Reuse the name of a field, type or another parameter across packages

Noncompliant Code Example

This noncompliant example implements a class that reuses the name of the class java.util.Vector. The intent of this class is to introduce a different condition for the isEmpty method for interfacing with native legacy code. A future programmer may not know about this extension and may incorrectly use the Vector idiom to use the original java.util.Vector class, by adding an import statement. Since a type (Vector class) can obscure a package name (java.util.Vector), the custom class Vector defined in the same package as VectorUser takes precedence, thus causing undesirable effects as a direct consequence of violating the programmer's assumptions.

Well defined import statements do resolve these issues but may get confusing when the reused name is defined in a different package. Moreover, a common (and misleading) tendency is to include the import statements after writing the code (many IDEs allow automatic inclusion as per requirements). As a result, such instances can go undetected.

class Vector {
private int val = 1;
  public boolean isEmpty() {
    if(val == 1)   //compares with 1 instead of 0
      return true;
    else
      return false;
  }
  //other functionality is same as java.util.Vector
}

import java.util.Vector; // desired functionality (line added later)

public class VectorUser {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Vector v = new Vector();
    if(v.isEmpty())
      System.out.println("Vector is empty");
  }
}

Compliant Solution

This compliant solution declares the class Vector with a different name:

class MyVector {
  //other code
}

Noncompliant Code Example

This noncompliant specimen reuses the name of the val instance field in the scope of an instance method. This behavior can be classified as shadowing.

class Vector {
  private int val = 1;
  private void doLogic() {
    int val;
    //...   
  }
}

Compliant Solution

This solution eliminates shadowing by using a different name for the variable defined in method scope.

private void doLogic() {
  int newValue;
  //...   
}

Noncompliant Code Example

Strange as it may sound, method shadowing in different scopes becomes possible when two or more packages are used. Method shadowing is distinct from method overloading as subclasses are allowed to inherit overloadings defined in the base class. It differs from hiding in that the methods do not have to be declared static. It is also distinct from method overriding as exemplified in the following code segment.

package x;
public class A {
  void doLogic() { /* print 'A' */ }  // default accessibility
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    A a = new y.C();
    a.doLogic(); // invokes doLogic() of class x.B and prints 'B'
  }
}

package x;
public class B extends A {
  void doLogic() { /* print 'B' */ }  // default accessibility
}

package y; // different package
public class C extends x.B {  
  public void doLogic() { /* print 'C' */ } // public
}

Note that class y.C is accessible from the package x and so is its doLogic() method. If however, the main() method defined in class A tries to polymorphically invoke y.doLogic() as shown, the override corresponding to class B in package x will take precedence. This is because the doLogic() methods in classes x.A and x.B are not visible from class y.C due to the default access specifier. Thus the class x.C is not considered a part of the overriding hierarchy. Notably, the code behaves as expected if the access specifiers of all the methods are changed to public.

Compliant Solution

It is highly recommended that a different name be used so that it is clear that the class residing in another package is not meant to be a part of the overriding chain. A programmer can proceed to invoke methods on it by explicitly using the class name. Even when all the classes define methods with a public access specifier, it is better to avoid reusing names since an evolving class could limit method accessibility anytime in the future causing unexpected results.

package x;
public class A {
  void doLogic() { /* print 'A' */ }  
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    y.C.doSequence(); // explicitly invokes doLogic() of class y.C and prints 'C'
  }
}

package x;
public class B { /* ... */ }

package y; // different package
public class C extends x.B {  
  public void doSequence() { /* print 'C' */ } // now renamed
}

Risk Assessment

Reusing names leads to code that is harder to read and maintain and may result in security weaknesses.

Automated Detection

TODO

Related Vulnerabilities

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

Other Languages

This rule appears in the C Secure Coding Standard as DCL01-C. Do not reuse variable names in subscopes.

This rule appears in the C++ Secure Coding Standard as DCL01-CPP. Do not reuse variable names in subscopes.

References

[[JLS 05]] 6.3.2 "Obscured Declarations", 6.3.1 "Shadowing Declarations"
[[Bloch 08]] Puzzle 67: All Strung Out
[[Kabanov 09]]
[[FindBugs 08]]:
Nm: Class names shouldn't shadow simple name of implemented interface
Nm: Class names shouldn't shadow simple name of superclass
MF: Class defines field that masks a superclass field
MF: Method defines a variable that obscures a field

SCP02-J. Use nested classes carefully      03. Scope (SCP)       04. Integers (INT)