Cocoon, Xerces, XSP, and Java HotSpot

[Joel Hughes <joel at redknee dot com>]

I've just discovered an issue with Cocoon, Xerces, and Java HotSpot 1.0.1. 

It would appear they don't work very well together. 

With HotSpot installed, Xerces exceptions (exception appended below) when loading an xml document a second time, that makes use of XSP.

HotSpot is an enhanced JVM which JIT-compiles and attempts to optimise oft-repeated code.  Obviously it's compilation is interfering with the XSP/Xerces processing.  As for "why", we'll leave for another day.

 

The problem is easily reproducible. Hotspot can be installed and removed without a reboot, just stop and start Apache.  I've tested this scenario on three machines, all with same results.

 

Config:

 

NT 4 SP6

Apache 1.3.11

Jserv 1.1

JDK 1.2.2

JSDK 2.1

HotSpot 1.0.1

Cocoon 1.6.1

Xerces 1.0.1

Xalan 0.19.2

FOP 0.12.0

 

Exception:

java.lang.NullPointerException
	at org.apache.xerces.dom.DeferredDocumentImpl.synchronizeChildren(DeferredDocumentImpl.java:1218)
	at org.apache.xerces.dom.NodeImpl.getChildNodes(NodeImpl.java:520)
	at org.apache.cocoon.Utils.getFirstPI(Utils.java:116)
	at org.apache.cocoon.processor.ProcessorFactory.getType(ProcessorFactory.java:79)
	at org.apache.cocoon.processor.ProcessorFactory.getProcessor(ProcessorFactory.java:70)
	at org.apache.cocoon.Engine.handle(Engine.java:282)
	at org.apache.cocoon.Cocoon.service(Cocoon.java:145)
	at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:840)
	at org.apache.jserv.JServConnection.processRequest(JServConnection.java:314)
	at org.apache.jserv.JServConnection.run(JServConnection.java:188)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:479)

 

Joel Hughes

joel@redknee.com