implementation inconsistency with scope rules for Java generic types

[Maurizio Cimadamore]

Hi Nick,
this is definitively an interesting question; if your example might look 
like a straight javac bug at first, it' less clear whether it should be 
considered as such when Subclass and NestedSubclass live in completely 
unrelated packages; I think that one in principle could exploit an 
eventual vulnerability (as the one you described for Eclipse) for 
acquiring access to members of a private type that otherwise cannot be 
accessed.

In this particular case however, since the class referencing the private 
type is the class in which that type is defined, I don't think that an 
error should be raised - so this is indeed a javac bug.

Alex do you have any JLS paragraph handy to support this?
Maurizio

Nick Radov wrote:
>
> I've run across an interesting inconsistency between javac and the 
> Java compiler built in to the Eclipse 3.3.2 IDE. Try compiling this 
> piece of code.
>
> public class X<T> {
> }
> class Subclass extends X<Subclass.NestedSubclass> {
> @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
> private final class NestedSubclass extends X {
> }
> }
>
> The javac compiler reports one error because the generic type 
> parameter of the Subclass class has private access, but Eclipse 
> reports no errors. I had reported this as an Eclipse bug, but one of 
> the Eclipse team thinks it may be a javac bug. You can see the Eclipse 
> bug report here: <https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=237656>.
>
> Does anyone know for sure which is correct? As far as I can tell the 
> JLS doesn't explicitly state whether this is allowed, although it may 
> be implicit in the scope rules.
>
> *Nick Radov | Director, Research & Development | Axolotl Corp*
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