Non-existent properties handling in .NET

The handling of non-existent properties in the XMS .NET is broadly consistent with the JMS specification, and also with the C and C++ implementations of XMS.

In JMS, accessing a non-existent property can result in a Java system exception when a method tries to convert the non-existent (null) value to the required type. If a property does not exist the following exceptions occur:

• getStringProperty and getObjectProperty return null
• getBooleanProperty returns false because Boolean.valueOf(null) returns false
• getIntProperty etc.throw java.lang.NumberFormatException because Integer.valueOf(null) throws the exception

If a property does not exist in XMS .NET the following exceptions occur:

• GetStringProperty and GetObjectProperty (and GetBytesProperty) return null (which is the same as Java)
• GetBooleanProperty throws System.NullReferenceException
• GetIntProperty etc. throws System.NullReferenceException

This implementation is different from Java, but it is broadly consistent with the JMS specification, and with the XMS C and C++ interfaces. Like the Java implementation, XMS .NET propagates any exceptions from the System.Convert call to the caller. Unlike Java however, XMS explicitly throws NullReferenceExceptions rather than just using the native behavior of the .NET framework through passing null to system conversion routines. If the application sets a property to a String like abc and calls GetIntProperty, the System.FormatException thrown by Convert.ToInt32("abc") is propagated to the caller, which is consistent with Java. MessageFormatException is thrown only if the types used for setProperty and getProperty are incompatible. This behavior is also consistent with Java.