Reject null and empty SpEL expressions

Prior to gh-30325, supplying a null reference for a SpEL expression was
effectively equivalent to supplying the String "null" as the
expression. Consequently, evaluation of a null reference expression
always evaluated to a null reference. However, that was accidental
rather than by design.

Due to the introduction of the checkExpressionLength(String) method in
InternalSpelExpressionParser (in conjunction with gh-30325), an attempt
to evaluate a null reference as a SpEL expression now results in a
NullPointerException.

To address both of these issues,
TemplateAwareExpressionParser.parseExpression() and
SpelExpressionParser.parseRaw() now reject null and empty SpEL
expressions.

See gh-30371
Closes gh-30373

spring-expression/src/main/java/org/springframework/expression/common/TemplateAwareExpressionParser.java

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright 2002-2018 the original author or authors.
+ * Copyright 2002-2023 the original author or authors.
  *
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import org.springframework.expression.ExpressionParser;
 import org.springframework.expression.ParseException;
 import org.springframework.expression.ParserContext;
 import org.springframework.lang.Nullable;
+import org.springframework.util.Assert;
 
 /**
  * An expression parser that understands templates. It can be subclassed by expression
@@ -34,6 +35,7 @@ import org.springframework.lang.Nullable;
  * @author Keith Donald
  * @author Juergen Hoeller
  * @author Andy Clement
+ * @author Sam Brannen
  * @since 3.0
  */
 public abstract class TemplateAwareExpressionParser implements ExpressionParser {
@@ -46,9 +48,11 @@ public abstract class TemplateAwareExpressionParser implements ExpressionParser
 	@Override
 	public Expression parseExpression(String expressionString, @Nullable ParserContext context) throws ParseException {
 		if (context != null && context.isTemplate()) {
+			Assert.notNull(expressionString, "'expressionString' must not be null");
 			return parseTemplate(expressionString, context);
 		}
 		else {
+			Assert.hasText(expressionString, "'expressionString' must not be null or blank");
 			return doParseExpression(expressionString, context);
 		}
 	}

spring-expression/src/main/java/org/springframework/expression/spel/standard/SpelExpressionParser.java

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*
- * Copyright 2002-2014 the original author or authors.
+ * Copyright 2002-2023 the original author or authors.
  *
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ import org.springframework.util.Assert;
  *
  * @author Andy Clement
  * @author Juergen Hoeller
+ * @author Sam Brannen
  * @since 3.0
  */
 public class SpelExpressionParser extends TemplateAwareExpressionParser {
@@ -53,6 +54,7 @@ public class SpelExpressionParser extends TemplateAwareExpressionParser {
 
 
 	public SpelExpression parseRaw(String expressionString) throws ParseException {
+		Assert.hasText(expressionString, "'expressionString' must not be null or blank");
 		return doParseExpression(expressionString, null);
 	}
 

spring-expression/src/test/java/org/springframework/expression/spel/TemplateExpressionParsingTests.java

@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ import org.springframework.expression.spel.support.StandardEvaluationContext;
 
 import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
 import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThatExceptionOfType;
+import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThatIllegalArgumentException;
 
 /**
  * @author Andy Clement
@@ -72,6 +73,13 @@ class TemplateExpressionParsingTests extends AbstractExpressionTests {
 	private final SpelExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();
 
 
+	@Test
+	void nullTemplateExpressionIsRejected() {
+		assertThatIllegalArgumentException()
+			.isThrownBy(() -> parser.parseExpression(null, DEFAULT_TEMPLATE_PARSER_CONTEXT))
+			.withMessage("'expressionString' must not be null");
+	}
+
 	@Test
 	void parsingSimpleTemplateExpression01() {
 		Expression expr = parser.parseExpression("hello ${'world'}", DEFAULT_TEMPLATE_PARSER_CONTEXT);

spring-expression/src/test/java/org/springframework/expression/spel/standard/SpelParserTests.java

@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ import org.springframework.expression.spel.support.StandardEvaluationContext;
 
 import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;
 import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThatExceptionOfType;
+import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThatIllegalArgumentException;
 import static org.springframework.expression.spel.SpelMessage.MISSING_CONSTRUCTOR_ARGS;
 import static org.springframework.expression.spel.SpelMessage.NON_TERMINATING_DOUBLE_QUOTED_STRING;
 import static org.springframework.expression.spel.SpelMessage.NON_TERMINATING_QUOTED_STRING;
@@ -53,6 +54,32 @@ class SpelParserTests {
 	private final SpelExpressionParser parser = new SpelExpressionParser();
 
 
+	@Test
+	void nullExpressionIsRejected() {
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseExpression(null));
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseRaw(null));
+	}
+
+	@Test
+	void emptyExpressionIsRejected() {
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseExpression(""));
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseRaw(""));
+	}
+
+	@Test
+	void blankExpressionIsRejected() {
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseExpression("     "));
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseExpression("\t\n"));
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseRaw("     "));
+		assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(() -> parser.parseRaw("\t\n"));
+	}
+
+	private static void assertNullOrEmptyExpressionIsRejected(ThrowingCallable throwingCallable) {
+		assertThatIllegalArgumentException()
+			.isThrownBy(throwingCallable)
+			.withMessage("'expressionString' must not be null or blank");
+	}
+
 	@Test
 	void theMostBasic() {
 		SpelExpression expr = parser.parseRaw("2");