Duplicate Key in Associative List (Alist)

Opis

Duplicate keys in associative lists can lead to non-unique keys being mistaken for an error.

A duplicate key entry -- if the alist is designed properly -- could be used as a constant time replace function. However, duplicate key entries could be inserted by mistake. Because of this ambiguity, duplicate key entries in an association list are not recommended and should not be allowed.

Skutki

• Other

  Quality Degradation; Varies by Context

Zapobieganie

• Architecture and Design

  Use a hash table instead of an alist.

• Architecture and Design

  Use an alist which checks the uniqueness of hash keys with each entry before inserting the entry.

Słabość nadrzędna

• CWE-694 Use of Multiple Resources with Duplicate Identifier

Kiedy powstaje

• Implementation

Dotyczy

C, C++, Java, C#

Źródła

1. The CLASP Application Security Process — Secure Software, Inc., 2005