[cli] exception when setting HelpFormatter comparator to null

"Colton, John - Eagan, MN via dev" <[email protected]> Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:52:52 +0000
Newsgroups gmane.comp.jakarta.commons.devel
Message-ID <DM2PR09MB121636EF0FBC39E3A87ECDAE89752A@DM2PR09MB12163.namprd09.prod.outlook.com>
The documentation for AbstractHelpFormatter.Builder.setComparator() says: "If set to null no sorting is performed."

But if you actually do that and try to get the HelpFormatter:
final Builder helpFormatterBuilder = HelpFormatter.builder();
helpFormatterBuilder.setComparator(null);
final HelpFormatter helpFormatter = helpFormatterBuilder.get();

it throws an exception:

java.lang.NullPointerException: comparator

                at java.util.Objects.requireNonNull(Objects.java:228)

                at org.apache.commons.cli.help.AbstractHelpFormatter.<init>(AbstractHelpFormatter.java:210)

                at org.apache.commons.cli.help.HelpFormatter.<init>(HelpFormatter.java:138)

                at org.apache.commons.cli.help.HelpFormatter$Builder.get(HelpFormatter.java:90)

                at my.code.main(Main.java:555)

It doesn't look like there is any code in HelpFormatter or AbstractHelpFormatter that functions as described in that documentation.