Error descriptions in TestPlan can contain NV pairs with the value "null"

[Stephane Mikaty (eCircle AG)]

We've had the following SOAP Fault in a live environment:

CHECKPOINT-FAIL testplan.auto.unit.ecsoap.Invoke:SOAP-Fault:
    TestUnit: unit.ecsoap.Invoke
    FaultCode: {http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/}Server.userException
    FaultString: com.ecircleag.webservices.EcMException: IO Error
    FaultActor: null
    Error: null
    AutoStack: in {Unknown}
    Inside call to unit.ecsoap.Invoke
    ....

The "FaultActor" and "Error" should not pollute the output if they are null in our opinion.

[edA-qa (eda-qa)]

Technically these are defects/annoyances in the apache library. Especially for error, since it is the result of calling getMessage() on a Throwable. This may, according to the Java API docs return "null", thus "null" is the legitimate error here.

If anything a translation layer makes sense, such that "nulls" are converted to a string like "Unspecified" or "Not Available"

[edA-qa (eda-qa)]

To be clear, I'm against hiding the entries completely, especially the "Error" field since the user should come to expect that all exceptions have an error (with that in mind I'll translate a null error here to something like "AXIS Sucks and broke" ;)