The original fault was mine, but the error message that came up is both
grammatically either incomplete or incorrect, and fairly misleading anyway.

I used a format string of "The date is {0:date}", using a ':' instead of ','.
The message that is generated is
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: argument number too large at

So, how many ways can I criticise this message....
- It is not a problem with the argument number
- The message either ends with unterminated "at", or if you read on to
  the stack trace in the next line, has an extraneous "at".
- Reading the code, this message is generated even if the number is too small!
Enough said?

-- Jon


import java.text.MessageFormat;
import java.util.Date;

public class toy {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
System.err.println(MessageFormat.format("The date is {0:date}", new Object[] {new Date()}));
    }
}


java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: argument number too large at
        at java.text.MessageFormat.makeFormat(MessageFormat.java)
        at java.text.MessageFormat.applyPattern(MessageFormat.java)
        at java.text.MessageFormat.<init>(MessageFormat.java)
        at java.text.MessageFormat.format(MessageFormat.java)
        at toy.main(toy.java:6)




Name: krC82822 Date: 09/09/2000


java version "1.2.2"
Classic VM (build JDK-1.2.2-001, native threads, symcjit)


import java.text.MessageFormat;

public class TestMessageFormat {

  public static void main(String [] args) {

    try {
      MessageFormat s = new MessageFormat("{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}");
      System.out.println(s.format(args));
    } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

    try {
      // the following line causes the runtime exception
      MessageFormat s = new MessageFormat("{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}{0}");
      System.out.println(s.format(args));
    } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }

}

causes the following runtime exception
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: argument number too large at
        at java.text.MessageFormat.makeFormat(MessageFormat.java:787)
        at java.text.MessageFormat.applyPattern(MessageFormat.java:321)
        at java.text.MessageFormat.<init>(MessageFormat.java:251)
        at com.rnix.test.TestMessageFormat.main(TestMessageFormat.java:17)
(Review ID: 109332)
======================================================================
Used TestMessageFormat.java to verify this bug, it works.

###@###.### 2001-09-24