Storing plaintext inside a java 8 closure - java

I once saw a talk by Douglas Crockford where, in the context of javascript, he mentioned that it could be useful to store secrets in closures.
I imagine this could be naively implemented like this in Java:
public static Supplier<String> passwordStore(String encryptedPassword){
String plainTextPassword = encryptedPassword; //do some decryption
return () -> plainTextPassword;
}
I wonder: Is there any benefit to doing this? Is it maybe in some way less secure?

No reason to do that. Store the password in the array of characters, since they must be explicitly converted to String if you want to print them out.
Consider the following example:
String stringPassword = "password";
char[] charactersPassword = new char[]{'p','a','s','s','w','o', 'r', 'd'};
System.out.println("Password: " + stringPassword); // Password: password
System.out.println("Password: " + charactersPassword); // Password: [C#6ce253f1
The main idea is you can clear the array's items, since it is not immutable (#Klitos Kyriacou).
Arrays.fill(charactersPassword, '0');
Moreover, if you store the password as a plain text - String, which is immutable, it will be available in the memory for a long time (which is still somehow accesible) until the Garbage collector takes care of it.
Anyway, it's highly recommended to look after some security library which can handle much more than inventing a new (usually still risky) way.

Here's a very "engineered" example so DO NOT USE IT IN YOUR CODE.
I think the effect can be better demonstrated with a predicate rather than a supplier.
Assume you implement a password checker as follows:
public class PasswordChecker {
private final String secretPassword;
public PasswordChecker(String secretPassword) {
this.secretPassword = secretPassword;
}
public boolean test(String password) {
return Objects.equals(this.secretPassword, password);
}
}
Then you can create an instance an pass it around:
final PasswordChecker passwordChecker = new PasswordChecker("changeit");
And somewhere else you could use it to check the password:
assertThat(passwordChecker.test("foobar")).isFalse();
However for the client which has an instance of PasswordChecker at hand, it is not so difficult to extract the password with some reflection:
Field secretPasswordField = passwordChecker.getClass().getDeclaredField("secretPassword");
secretPasswordField.setAccessible(true);
String secretPassword = (String) secretPasswordField.get(passwordChecker);
System.out.print(secretPassword);
Now here's the same thing with a closure:
final String secretPassword = "changeit";
final Predicate<String> passwordChecker = password -> Objects.equals(secretPassword, password);
Now you can't extract secretPassword from the passwordChecker.

Related

Huge constructor for messages/names definition

I want to allow name and message customisation in both my lexer and parsers. The parser/lexer must be able to select a specific message or name, e.g.:
messageManager.tokenName.eofToken
Here, eofToken would be a String. tokenName would be a set of names for lexer tokens and messageManager would be a structure like { parserMessage, lexerMessage, contextName, tokenName }
However, I want the message customisation very directly constructed. I don't want something like:
TokenName tokenName = new TokenName();
tokenName.eofToken = "end of file";
tokenName.identifier = "identifier";
tokenName.keyword = "keyword";
tokenName.regExpLiteral = "regexp' literal";
// much more...
I want something like:
new TokenName(
"end of file",
"identifier",
"keyword",
...
)
I know we just need to define parameters and assign them to the corresponding variables, but I don't want a huge constructor like the one I had in my previous parser:
public TokenNames(
String booleanLiteral,
String eofToken,
String identifier,
String punctuator,
String keyword,
String numericLiteral,
String nullLiteral,
String regExpLiteral,
String stringLiteral,
String xmlName,
String xmlMarkup,
String xmlPunctuator,
String xmlTagCharacters,
String xmlText
)
{
this.booleanLiteral = booleanLiteral;
this.eofToken = eofToken;
this.identifier = identifier;
this.punctuator = punctuator;
this.keyword = keyword;
this.numericLiteral = numericLiteral;
this.nullLiteral = nullLiteral;
this.regExpLiteral = regExpLiteral;
this.stringLiteral = stringLiteral;
this.xmlName = xmlName;
this.xmlMarkup = xmlMarkup;
this.xmlPunctuator = xmlPunctuator;
this.xmlTagCharacters = xmlTagCharacters;
this.xmlText = xmlText;
}
I believe it's possible with arrays or varargs (more readable). How to?
Define class like this:
public class Token {
private String booleanLiteral;
private String eofToken;
...
public Token withBooleanLiteral(String booleanLiteral) {
this.booleanLiteral = booleanLiteral;
return this;
}
public Token withEofToken(String eofToken) {
this.eofToken = eofToken;
return this;
}
...
}
You'll get
Token token = new Token()
.withBooleanLiteral("something");
Check out Lombok library and #Wither annotation. It does everything for you.
Of course, the builder pattern is the most obvious solution in here (and the correct one).
But I would like to draw your attention to the fact there is a lot of fields that can be encapsulated by their own classes.
The following fields can be collected into an XMLDescription class:
String xmlName;
String xmlMarkup;
String xmlPunctuator;
String xmlTagCharacters;
String xmlText;
The next ones can be grouped by a LiteralDescription class:
String numericLiteral;
String nullLiteral;
String regExpLiteral;
String stringLiteral;
Think the problem over once more: if there is a chance to shorten a number of the fields to 3 (an extreme bound according to good practices), the constructor can be used instead of the builder.
I believe it's possible with arrays or varargs (more readable).
Please, don't do that - it's an error-prone approach. You are coupling an index of the array with a corresponding field. Such code, hard to maintain and document, causes an API user
to read a documentation if any provided,
to poke around in the sources if no provided,
to follow to any API change believing that nothing is changed.

Dynamically Creating Objects in a Class from String

I'm trying to make a Sign Up window on JFrame Form in NetBeans. I have created a class named users (in the same package) that has a username as String and password as char[].
When the username and password are filled, and Sign Up button is pressed, I want to make a new object in the class 'users' so that it's name is taken from username textfield itself.
I want to dynamically create object whose names have been taken from a string.
eg: If I put value of Username as "guy", then create users.guy which has a String = "guy" and a char[] as password.
package login;
public class users {
private char[] password;
String username;
users() {
username = "anonymous";
password = null;
}
users(String u, char[] p) {
username = u;
password = p;
}
void putdata() {
System.out.println(username);
System.out.println(password);
}
}
Thanks in advance.
If I understand good your question what you want to do is a mapping. In Java there's a lot of ways for do that.
I would recommend you the use of HashMap, it's simple and efficient.
There's a simple example.
String userYayotrón = "Yayotrón";
char[] passwordYayotrón = "contraseña".toArray();
Map<String, char[]> usersMap = new HashMap<String, char[]>();
//This hashmap will take two values, the KEY which identifies the VALUE. The key is the first one, which I define as String. I will use it for save the User's name. And the value will be the password.
usersMap.put(userYayotrón,passwordYayotrón);
Now, you can use this map for a lot of things. For example:
usersMap .get(userYayotrón); // This will return an char[] with the password of Yayotrón.
usersMap .size(); // How many users do you have in this map.
Also I highly recommend read the following question related:
What java collection should I use?
How to use Java Set?
How does HashMap works in Java?
Create a new instance of the users class passing the username and password like so:
new users(userTextField.getText(), userPasswordField.getText().toCharArray())
If you include the code for the GUI itself I'd be able to give you a more direct answer/solution.

how to use same string in two java files

Sorry for my bad English and for maybe stupid question but I'm new in Java.
I need use same string in 2 java files for example:
In first java file I've got code for sending emails, I've got string set to default email:
public String mail = new String ("lala#gmail.com");
and I use this string in code for send email:
email.addTo(mail);
In second java file something like set up where can user set new email address I want to have same string, connected with string in first java file. When user put new email String mail will be change to new email address and in email.addTo(mail); will be use this new address
How can I do this?
use Shared Preferences, you can store it as key-value Pair. value being your email and key can be any unique string which you want to identify it with.
I'm a bit confused with the question, but I'll take a stab at it. Basically, you would like to have one String in a given file be used in multiple locations. This is easily done using class-level variables and making them publicly accessible.
For example, in the file:
EmailObject.java
public class EmailObject {
public static final String mail = "lala#gmail.com";
// The rest of your code
}
Another file can access this like so:
OtherObject.java
public void sendEmail() {
EmailMessage email = new EmailMessage();
email.addTo(EmailObject.mail);
}
Note the static and final modifiers on the original. This ensures that you do not need an actual instance of EmailObject to access the string and it also ensures that the string is never modified accidentally by some other object.
There are, of course, other ways to do this, but this one matches your code the most. This is also a very "Java" solution. Android has other ways to share data (as indicated by the other answer).
The simplest way that I would not recommend is to have a public static field:
class A {
public static String commonString;
}
class B {
public void methodThatUsesString () {
// Do stuff with the string
Log.d("I have the string", A.commonString);
}
}
If you have two Activities, and one starts another, you can send data through Intents.
The forementioned SharedPreferences way is a good solution too, if the email address is a persistent thing, a preference if you will, and not just data reqired for an operation.
You can keep a reference of one instance of a class in the otherone, and access it's fields through it:
class A {
public String commonString;
}
class B {
private final A instaceOfA;
public B (A instanceOfA) {
this.instanceOfA = instanceOfA;
}
public void methodThatUsesString () {
// Do stuff with the string
Log.d("I have the string", instanceOfA.commonString);
}
}
Or even use a getter or setter if performance is not an issue.
Many answers depending on how the string will be used.
If it's a constant string, one that will never change, never use final static String
public final static String AUTHOR_MAIL = "lala#gmail.com";
Then you can use it in a static way wherever you want.
email.addTo(MyClass.AUTHOR_MAIL);
If this String will be used in different Activities you can not access it directly (you can not tell if the other Activity is still alive). You have to use Persistence Mechanisms such as SharedPreferences or directly send needed data in your Intent.
If it's in a helper class inside your Activity, you can just use mObject.mail to get it.

Dynamic variable names Java

How will I be able to retrieve the value of a variable which has a dynamic name
For Example I have list of constants
public class Constant{
public static final String S_R = "Standard(240)";
public static final String S_W = "Standard(180)";
public static final String L_R = "Large(360)";
public static final String L_W = "Large(280)";
}
Based on database I build a variable name
String varName = "S" + "_" +"R"; // This can be S_R , S_W , L_R or L_W
String varVal = // How do i get value of S_R
Use a normal HashMap with variable names as strings against their values. Or use a EnumMap with enums as key and your value as values. AFAIK, that's the closest you can get when using Java. Sure, you can mess around with reflection but IMO the map approach is much more logical.
You can use a Map<String, String> and locate the value by its key.
Even better, you can have an enum:
public enum Foo {
S_R("Standard", 240),
S_W("Standard", 180),...;
private String type;
private String duration;
// constructor and getters
}
And then call Foo.valueOf(name)
(You can also do this via reflection - Constants.class.getField(fieldName) and then call field.get(null) (null for static). But that's not really a good approach.)
If you really must do this (and it's unlikely), you would have to use the Java "reflection" APIs.

String replacement in java, similar to a velocity template

Is there any String replacement mechanism in Java, where I can pass objects with a text, and it replaces the string as it occurs?
For example, the text is:
Hello ${user.name},
Welcome to ${site.name}.
The objects I have are user and site. I want to replace the strings given inside ${} with its equivalent values from the objects. This is same as we replace objects in a velocity template.
Use StringSubstitutor from Apache Commons Text.
Dependency import
Import the Apache commons text dependency using maven as bellow:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
<artifactId>commons-text</artifactId>
<version>1.10.0</version>
</dependency>
Example
Map<String, String> valuesMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
valuesMap.put("animal", "quick brown fox");
valuesMap.put("target", "lazy dog");
String templateString = "The ${animal} jumped over the ${target}.";
StringSubstitutor sub = new StringSubstitutor(valuesMap);
String resolvedString = sub.replace(templateString);
Take a look at the java.text.MessageFormat class, MessageFormat takes a set of objects, formats them, then inserts the formatted strings into the pattern at the appropriate places.
Object[] params = new Object[]{"hello", "!"};
String msg = MessageFormat.format("{0} world {1}", params);
My preferred way is String.format() because its a oneliner and doesn't require third party libraries:
String message = String.format("Hello! My name is %s, I'm %s.", name, age);
I use this regularly, e.g. in exception messages like:
throw new Exception(String.format("Unable to login with email: %s", email));
Hint: You can put in as many variables as you like because format() uses Varargs
I threw together a small test implementation of this. The basic idea is to call format and pass in the format string, and a map of objects, and the names that they have locally.
The output of the following is:
My dog is named fido, and Jane Doe owns him.
public class StringFormatter {
private static final String fieldStart = "\\$\\{";
private static final String fieldEnd = "\\}";
private static final String regex = fieldStart + "([^}]+)" + fieldEnd;
private static final Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex);
public static String format(String format, Map<String, Object> objects) {
Matcher m = pattern.matcher(format);
String result = format;
while (m.find()) {
String[] found = m.group(1).split("\\.");
Object o = objects.get(found[0]);
Field f = o.getClass().getField(found[1]);
String newVal = f.get(o).toString();
result = result.replaceFirst(regex, newVal);
}
return result;
}
static class Dog {
public String name;
public String owner;
public String gender;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Dog d = new Dog();
d.name = "fido";
d.owner = "Jane Doe";
d.gender = "him";
Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();
map.put("d", d);
System.out.println(
StringFormatter.format(
"My dog is named ${d.name}, and ${d.owner} owns ${d.gender}.",
map));
}
}
Note: This doesn't compile due to unhandled exceptions. But it makes the code much easier to read.
Also, I don't like that you have to construct the map yourself in the code, but I don't know how to get the names of the local variables programatically. The best way to do it, is to remember to put the object in the map as soon as you create it.
The following example produces the results that you want from your example:
public static void main(String[] args) {
Map<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();
Site site = new Site();
map.put("site", site);
site.name = "StackOverflow.com";
User user = new User();
map.put("user", user);
user.name = "jjnguy";
System.out.println(
format("Hello ${user.name},\n\tWelcome to ${site.name}. ", map));
}
I should also mention that I have no idea what Velocity is, so I hope this answer is relevant.
Here's an outline of how you could go about doing this. It should be relatively straightforward to implement it as actual code.
Create a map of all the objects that will be referenced in the template.
Use a regular expression to find variable references in the template and replace them with their values (see step 3). The Matcher class will come in handy for find-and-replace.
Split the variable name at the dot. user.name would become user and name. Look up user in your map to get the object and use reflection to obtain the value of name from the object. Assuming your objects have standard getters, you will look for a method getName and invoke it.
There are a couple of Expression Language implementations out there that does this for you, could be preferable to using your own implementation as or if your requirments grow, see for example JUEL and MVEL
I like and have successfully used MVEL in at least one project.
Also see the Stackflow post JSTL/JSP EL (Expression Language) in a non JSP (standalone) context
Handlebars.java might be a better option in terms of a Velocity-like syntax with other server-side templating features.
http://jknack.github.io/handlebars.java/
Handlebars handlebars = new Handlebars();
Template template = handlebars.compileInline("Hello {{this}}!");
System.out.println(template.apply("Handlebars.java"));
I use GroovyShell in java to parse template with Groovy GString:
Binding binding = new Binding();
GroovyShell gs = new GroovyShell(binding);
// this JSONObject can also be replaced by any Java Object
JSONObject obj = new JSONObject();
obj.put("key", "value");
binding.setProperty("obj", obj)
String str = "${obj.key}";
String exp = String.format("\"%s\".toString()", str);
String res = (String) gs.evaluate(exp);
// value
System.out.println(str);
I created this utility that uses vanilla Java. It combines two formats... {} and %s style from String.format.... into one method call. Please note it only replaces empty {} brackets, not {someWord}.
public class LogUtils {
public static String populate(String log, Object... objects) {
log = log.replaceAll("\\{\\}", "%s");
return String.format(log, objects);
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(populate("x = %s, y ={}", 5, 4));;
}
}
Since Java 15 you have the method String.formatted() (see documentation).
str.formatted(args) is the equivalent of String.format(str, args) with less ceremony.
For the example mentioned in the question, the method could be used as follows:
"Hello %s, Welcome to %s.".formatted(user.getName(), site.getName())
Good news. Java is most likely going to have string templates (probably from version 21).
See the string templates proposal (JEP 430) here.
It will be something along the lines of this:
String name = "John";
String info = STR."I am \{name}";
System.out.println(info); // I am John
P.S. Kotlin is 100% interoperable with Java. It supports cleaner string templates out of the box:
val name = "John"
val info = "I am $name"
println(info) // I am John
Combined with extension functions, you can achieve the same thing the Java template processors (e.g. STR) will do.
There is nothing out of the box that is comparable to velocity since velocity was written to solve exactly that problem. The closest thing you can try is looking into the Formatter
http://cupi2.uniandes.edu.co/site/images/recursos/javadoc/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/Formatter.html
However the formatter as far as I know was created to provide C like formatting options in Java so it may not scratch exactly your itch but you are welcome to try :).

Categories

Resources