Code flag to indicate a need to revisit the code / locate unfinished code?

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

Thanks to the Coverity findings, I came across this code (CID 1437461):

    public Series updateSeriesSetFinalized(Long id){
        Series series = seriesRepository.findById(id);

        if (series == null) {
            // throw Object not find
        }

        String username = SecurityContextHolder.getContext().getAuthentication().getName();

        series.setSeriesStatus(STATUS_CLOSED);
        series.setFinalisedDate(new Date());
        series.setFinalisedBy(username);

        return seriesRepository.save(series);
    }

This made me wonder if perhaps we should standardize on a flag/marker to
place on code like the block for series == null above, to make it easy
to find code that need to be revisited / fixed.

A fairly common way to do it is by adding 'FIXME' or a similar easy to
search for expression in front of comments like this:

        if (series == null) {
            // FIXME throw Object not find
        }

Another is to add output statements reporting that the unfinished code
was reached.  The exact method can differ, but something like this would
probably work:

  import static java.lang.System.out;
  [...]
        if (series == null) {
            out.println("FIXME missing throw Object when not found");
        }

Note, it must be possible to find all such code blocks, so some unique
indicator should be used also here..  I used FIXME in the string, but a
special function call name could be used too.

Thomas, what do you think?  Do you have a better way to keep track of
the unfinished code?

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen