NPE thrown when reading non-existent node

When attempting to call

nodes = (Nodes) dataService.readOperationalData(nodesIdentifier);

against a nodeInstanceIdentifier of
InstanceIdentifier [path=[org.opendaylight.yang.gen.v1.urn.opendaylight.inventory.rev130819.Nodes]]

I get the following execption thrown:

2013-11-18 06:22:20.464 CST [Start Level Event Dispatcher] ERROR o.o.o.o.m.u.InventoryDataServiceUtil - Caught exception from dataService.readOperationalData
java.lang.NullPointerException: null
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.connect.dom.RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl._toDataDomPathArgument(RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl.java:253) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.connect.dom.RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl.toDataDomPathArgument(RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl.java:277) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.connect.dom.RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl.toDataDomImpl(RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl.java:176) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.connect.dom.RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl.toDataDom(RuntimeGeneratedMappingServiceImpl.java:187) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.connect.dom.BindingIndependentDataServiceConnector.readOperationalData(BindingIndependentDataServiceConnector.java:42) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.connect.dom.BindingIndependentDataServiceConnector.readOperationalData(BindingIndependentDataServiceConnector.java:27) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.common.impl.routing.AbstractDataReadRouter$2.apply(AbstractDataReadRouter.java:78) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.common.impl.routing.AbstractDataReadRouter$2.apply(AbstractDataReadRouter.java:75) ~[na:na]
at com.google.common.collect.Iterators$8.transform(Iterators.java:860) ~[bundlefile:na]
at com.google.common.collect.TransformedIterator.next(TransformedIterator.java:48) ~[bundlefile:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.util.BindingAwareDataReaderRouter.merge(BindingAwareDataReaderRouter.java:12) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.util.BindingAwareDataReaderRouter.merge(BindingAwareDataReaderRouter.java:8) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.common.impl.routing.AbstractDataReadRouter.readOperationalData(AbstractDataReadRouter.java:39) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.common.impl.service.AbstractDataBroker.readOperationalData(AbstractDataBroker.java:80) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.controller.sal.binding.impl.DataBrokerImpl.readOperationalData(DataBrokerImpl.java:19) ~[na:na]
at org.opendaylight.openflowplugin.openflow.md.util.InventoryDataServiceUtil.checkForNodes(InventoryDataServiceUtil.java:74) [bundlefile:na]
at org.opendaylight.openflowplugin.openflow.md.util.InventoryDataServiceUtil.<init>(InventoryDataServiceUtil.java:48) [bundlefile:na]

Note: This was attempted against the controller built in openflowplugin/distributions/base

Against https://git.opendaylight.org/gerrit/#/c/2797/4 (for openflowplugin)
and
https://git.opendaylight.org/gerrit/#/c/2781/9 (for controller).