DCL60-J. Avoid cyclic dependencies between packages

Both The Elements of Java Style [Vermeulen 2000] and the JPL Java Coding Standard [Havelund 2010] require that the dependency structure of a package must never contain cycles; that is, it must be representable as a directed acyclic graph (DAG).

Eliminating cycles between packages has several advantages:

• Testing and maintainability. Cyclic dependencies magnify the repercussions of changes or patches to source code. Reducing the repercussions of changes simplifies testing and improves maintainability. Inability to perform adequate testing because of cyclic dependencies is a frequent source of security vulnerabilities.
• Reusability. Cyclic dependencies between packages require that the packages be released and upgraded in lockstep. This requirement reduces reusability.
• Releases and builds. Avoiding cycles also helps to steer the development toward an environment that fosters modularization.
• Deployment. Avoiding cyclic dependencies between packages reduces coupling between packages. Reduced coupling reduces the frequency of runtime errors such as ClassNotFoundError. This, in turn, simplifies deployment.

Noncompliant Code Example

This noncompliant code example contains packages named account and user that consist of the classes AccountHolder, User, and UserDetails respectively. The class UserDetails extends from AccountHolder because a user is a kind of account holder. The class AccountHolder depends on a nonstatic utility method defined in the User class. Likewise, the UserDetails depends on AccountHolder by extending it.

package account;
import user.User;
public class AccountHolder {

  private User user;
  public void setUser(User newUser) {user = newUser;}
 
  synchronized void depositFunds(String username, double amount) {
    // Use a utility method of User to check whether username exists
    if (user.exists(username)) { 
      // Deposit the amount
    } 
  }

  protected double getBalance(String accountNumber) { 
    // Return the account balance 
    return 1.0; 
  }
}

package user;
import account.AccountHolder;
public class UserDetails extends AccountHolder {
  public synchronized double getUserBalance(String accountNumber) {
    // Use a method of AccountHolder to get the account balance 
    return getBalance(accountNumber); 
  }
}
 
public class User {
  public boolean exists(String username) { 
    // Check whether user exists 
    return true; // Exists
  }
}

Compliant Solution

The tight coupling between the classes in the two packages can be weakened by introducing an interface called BankApplication in a third package, bank. The cyclic package dependency is eliminated by ensuring that the AccountHolder does not depend on User but instead relies on the interface by importing the bank package (and not by implementing the interface).

In this compliant solution, such functionality is achieved by adding a parameter of the interface type BankApplication to the depositFunds() method. This solution gives the AccountHolder a solid contract to bank on. Additionally, UserDetails implements the interface and provides concrete implementations of the methods while at the same time inheriting the other methods from AccountHolder.

package bank;
public interface BankApplication {   
  void depositFunds(BankApplication ba, String username, double amount);
  double getBalance(String accountNumber);
  double getUserBalance(String accountNumber);
  boolean exists(String username); 
}

package account;
import bank.BankApplication;  // Import from a third package
class AccountHolder  {
  private BankApplication ba;
  public void setBankApplication(BankApplication newBA) {
    ba = newBA;
  }

  public synchronized void depositFunds(BankApplication ba, 
      String username, double amount) {	
    // Use a utility method of UserDetails 
    // to check whether username exists
    if (ba.exists(username)) { 
      // Deposit the amount
    } 
  } 
  public double getBalance(String accountNumber) { 
    // Return the account balance 
    return 1.0; 
  }   
}

package user;
import account.AccountHolder; // One-way dependency
import bank.BankApplication;  // Import from a third package
public class UserDetails extends AccountHolder 
      implements BankApplication {
  public synchronized double getUserBalance(
      String accountNumber) {
    // Use a method of AccountHolder to get the account balance 
    return getBalance(accountNumber); 
  }
  public boolean exists(String username) { 
    // Check whether user exists
    return true; 
  }
}  

The interface BankApplication appears to contain superfluous methods such as depositFunds() and getBalance(). These methods are present so that if the subclass overrides them, the superclass retains the capability of internally invoking the subclass's methods polymorphically (for example, calling ba.getBalance() with an overridden implementation of the method in UserDetails). One consequence of this solution is that methods declared in the interface are required to be public in the classes that define them.

Applicability

Cyclic dependencies between packages can result in fragile builds. A security vulnerability in a package can easily percolate to other packages.

Automated Detection

Bibliography