BinaryValue does not support NULL buffer.

base/values.h

 // Copyright (c) 2012 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
 // Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
 // found in the LICENSE file.
 
 // This file specifies a recursive data storage class called Value intended for
 // storing setting and other persistable data.  It includes the ability to
 // specify (recursive) lists and dictionaries, so it's fairly expressive.
 // However, the API is optimized for the common case, namely storing a
 // hierarchical tree of simple values.  Given a DictionaryValue root, you can
 // easily do things like:
@@ skipping 163 matching lines @@
 
   DISALLOW_COPY_AND_ASSIGN(StringValue);
 };
 
 class BASE_EXPORT BinaryValue: public Value {
  public:
   virtual ~BinaryValue();
 
   // Creates a Value to represent a binary buffer.  The new object takes
   // ownership of the pointer passed in, if successful.
-  // Returns NULL if buffer is NULL.
   static BinaryValue* Create(char* buffer, size_t size);

[asargent_no_longer_on_chrome, 2012/05/11 21:22:46]

Instead of just changing the behavior of the Create method, let's instead get
rid of it and do 2 things:

-Make the existing constructor public, and remove the comment on it about "..so
that only objects with valid buffer pointers and size values can be created..".
Also, change its signature to:

BinaryValue(scoped_ptr<char> buffer, size_t size);

this gives us compile-time checking that forces callers to transfer ownership of
memory by calling .Pass() on the scoped_ptr that they pass in.

-create a no-argument constructor, which initializes the buffer_ to NULL and
size_ to 0.

-Add a warning comment above the 2 GetBuffer methods that they can return NULL.


BTW, I did a quick search in the code and the only user of Create() was us
working around this problem of not supporting empty buffers. 


You'll also probably need to update one or more existing tests in
values_unittest.cc, and it would be good to add a test or two to cover the new
behavior of allowing 0-length buffers.

 
   // For situations where you want to keep ownership of your buffer, this
   // factory method creates a new BinaryValue by copying the contents of the
   // buffer that's passed in.
-  // Returns NULL if buffer is NULL.
   static BinaryValue* CreateWithCopiedBuffer(const char* buffer, size_t size);
 
   size_t GetSize() const { return size_; }
   char* GetBuffer() { return buffer_; }
   const char* GetBuffer() const { return buffer_; }
 
   // Overridden from Value:
   virtual BinaryValue* DeepCopy() const OVERRIDE;
   virtual bool Equals(const Value* other) const OVERRIDE;
 
@@ skipping 291 matching lines @@
 
 }  // namespace base
 
 // http://crbug.com/88666
 using base::DictionaryValue;
 using base::ListValue;
 using base::StringValue;
 using base::Value;
 
 #endif  // BASE_VALUES_H_