False-positive MC_OVERRIDABLE_METHOD_CALL_IN_CONSTRUCTOR for method reference

[nmatt]

MC_OVERRIDABLE_METHOD_CALL_IN_CONSTRUCTOR is reported for mere method references, without them being invoked. This happens with SpotBugs version 4.8.3 (current release).

Example code:

public class Example
{
    public String s;
    
    public boolean overridable(String s) { return this.s.equals(s); }
    
    public final Predicate<String> predicate1 = this::overridable;

    public final Predicate<String> predicate2 = Predicate.not(this::overridable);
}

Both predicate1 and predicate2 produce the bug. In case of predicate1, the method is clearly not called. In the case of predicate2, it might of course theoretically be called, but there are also a lot of use cases (like here) where the method reference is just passed to be stored for later use. (One of the actual use cases I have is a memoization wrapper for the overridable method, stored as a field.)

One issue is that this also cannot be worked around by adding @SuppressFBWarnings("MC_OVERRIDABLE_METHOD_CALL_IN_CONSTRUCTOR") to the field declaration.

Maybe, if the analysis cannot determine that the overridable method is being passed for immediate invocation (like when passed to well-known methods like Map::compute), this should instead map to a separate bug code.

[gtoison]

I think this is the same issue as #1867

[JuditKnoll]

As far as I can see, this was fixed by #2900.

[nmatt]

@JuditKnoll: This doesn't appear to be actually fixed. The false positive still occurs in 4.8.6 (and 4.8.4 and 4.8.5) with the provided example. Can you please reopen?

[JuditKnoll]

Sorry, my bad. Thanks for checking it.