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V6084. Suspicious return of an always empty collection.
The analyzer has detected a 'return' statement that returns an always empty collection defined as a local variable.
This typically happens when you forget to add elements to the collection:
public List<Property> getProperties()
{
List<Property> properties = new ArrayList<>();
Property p1 = new Property();
p1.setName("property1");
p1.setValue(42);
return properties;
}The program will create an object of the appropriate type, but since the call 'properties.add(p1)' is missing, the 'getProperties' method will return incorrect data. Fixed code:
public List<Property> getProperties()
{
List<Property> properties = new ArrayList<>();
Property p1 = new Property();
p1.setName("property1");
p1.setValue(42);
properties.add(p1); // <=
return properties;
}When you need to return an empty collection, do so explicitly:
public List<Property> getMutableProperties()
{
return new ArrayList<>();
}
public List<Property> getImmutableProperties()
{
return Collections.emptyList();
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