Unexpected behaviour for Groovy 'with' method - variable assignment silently failed - groovy

Question

I have the following code:
import groovy.transform.ToString
#ToString(includeNames = true)
class Simple {
String creditPoints
}
Simple simple = new Simple()
simple.with {
creditPoints : "288"
}
println simple
Clearly, I made a mistake here with creditPoints : "288". It should have been creditPoints = "288".
I expected Groovy to fail at the runtime saying that I made a mistake and I should have used creditPoints = "288"but clearly it did not.
Since it did not fail then what did Groovy do with the closure I created?

Answer 1

From the Groovy compiler perspective, there is no mistake in your closure code. The compiler sees creditPoints : "288" as labeled statement which is a legal construction in the Groovy programming language. As the documentation says, label statement does not add anything to the resulting bytecode, but it can be used for instance by AST transformations (Spock Framework uses it heavily).
It becomes more clear and easy to understand if you format code more accurately to the label statement use case, e.g
class Simple {
String creditPoints
static void main(String[] args) {
Simple simple = new Simple()
simple.with {
creditPoints:
"288"
}
println simple
}
}
(NOTE: I put your script inside the main method body to show you its bytecode representation in the next section.)
Now when we know how compiler sees this construction, let's take a look and see what does the final bytecode look like. To do this we will decompile the .class file (I use IntelliJ IDEA for that - you simply open .class file in IDEA and it decompiles it for you):
//
// Source code recreated from a .class file by IntelliJ IDEA
// (powered by Fernflower decompiler)
//
import groovy.lang.Closure;
import groovy.lang.GroovyObject;
import groovy.lang.MetaClass;
import groovy.transform.ToString;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.DefaultGroovyMethods;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.GeneratedClosure;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.InvokerHelper;
#ToString
public class Simple implements GroovyObject {
private String creditPoints;
public Simple() {
MetaClass var1 = this.$getStaticMetaClass();
this.metaClass = var1;
}
public static void main(String... args) {
Simple simple = new Simple();
class _main_closure1 extends Closure implements GeneratedClosure {
public _main_closure1(Object _outerInstance, Object _thisObject) {
super(_outerInstance, _thisObject);
}
public Object doCall(Object it) {
return "288";
}
public Object call(Object args) {
return this.doCall(args);
}
public Object call() {
return this.doCall((Object)null);
}
public Object doCall() {
return this.doCall((Object)null);
}
}
DefaultGroovyMethods.with(simple, new _main_closure1(Simple.class, Simple.class));
DefaultGroovyMethods.println(Simple.class, simple);
Object var10000 = null;
}
public String toString() {
StringBuilder _result = new StringBuilder();
Boolean $toStringFirst = Boolean.TRUE;
_result.append("Simple(");
if ($toStringFirst == null ? false : $toStringFirst) {
Boolean var3 = Boolean.FALSE;
} else {
_result.append(", ");
}
if (this.getCreditPoints() == this) {
_result.append("(this)");
} else {
_result.append(InvokerHelper.toString(this.getCreditPoints()));
}
_result.append(")");
return _result.toString();
}
public String getCreditPoints() {
return this.creditPoints;
}
public void setCreditPoints(String var1) {
this.creditPoints = var1;
}
}
As you can see, your closure used with the with method is represented as an inner _main_closure1 class. This class extends Closure class, and it implements GeneratedClosure interface. The body of the closure is encapsulated in public Object doCall(Object it) method. This method only returns "288" string, which is expected - the last statement of the closure becomes a return statement by default. There is no label statement in the generated bytecode, which is also expected as labels get stripped at the CANONICALIZATION Groovy compiler phase.