Groovy gives error expecting EOF, found '?' @ line 9, column 25

Question

I'm using following code to generate random number in Groovy. I can run it in e.g. Groovy Web Console (https://groovyconsole.appspot.com/) and it works, however it fails when I try to run it in Mule. Here is the code I use:

log.info ">>run"
Random random = new Random()
def ranInt = random.nextInt()
def ran = Math.abs(​ranInt)​%20​0;
log.info ">>sleep counter:"+flowVars.counter+" ran: "+ran
sleep(ran)

And here is an exception that gets thrown:

Caused by: org.codehaus.groovy.control.MultipleCompilationErrorsException: startup failed: Script26.groovy: 9: expecting EOF, found '?' @ line 9, column 25. def ran = Math.abs(?400)?%20?0; ^

1 error

Solution

You have some extra unicode characters in line 4. If you convert it to hex you will get:

64 65 66 20 72 61 6e 20 3d 20 4d 61 74 68 2e 61 62 73 28 e2 80 8b 72 61 6e 49 6e 74 29 e2 80 8b 25 32 30 e2 80 8b 30 3b

Now if you convert this hex back to ascii, you will get:

def ran = Math.abs(​ranInt)​%20​0;

There is a character ​ added after first (, after ) and after first 0. If you remove it, your code will compile correctly.

Here is the hex of curated line:

64 65 66 20 72 61 6e 20 3d 20 4d 61 74 68 2e 61 62 73 28 72 61 6e 49 6e 74 29 25 32 30 30 3b

And the line itself:

def ran = Math.abs(ranInt)%200;

Comments

[Buddhi]

you are a genius :)

[Szymon Stepniak]

@Buddhi Nah, I just experienced similar problems a few times before :)

[Buddhi]

now i get new issue, when the ranInt is negative number for ex: -139709715, the Math.abs fails

[Buddhi]

also I tried to use a code like int absVal = (ranInt>0) ? ranInt : (-1*ranInt) log.info ">>absVal: " + absVal it also fails when ranInt is negative