references to non-static types from annotations

[Alex Buckley]

Filed https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8154270.

On 4/13/2016 4:35 PM, Liam Miller-Cushon wrote:
> Thanks for the explanation.
>
> Would anyone be willing to file the bug? I'd still like to contribute a fix.
>
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 11:29 AM, Alex Buckley <alex.buckley at oracle.com
> <mailto:alex.buckley at oracle.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 4/13/2016 11:12 AM, Liam Miller-Cushon wrote:
>
>         On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 10:57 AM, Alex Buckley
>         <alex.buckley at oracle.com <mailto:alex.buckley at oracle.com>
>         <mailto:alex.buckley at oracle.com
>         <mailto:alex.buckley at oracle.com>>> wrote:
>
>              I know what you mean, but the fact that I can write
>         @A(Test.I.class)
>              today means making it consistent would be a serious source
>              incompatibility.
>
>         And I don't think it would be a significant incompatibility, for
>         what
>         it's worth. I only found a single example of this in our
>         codebase, and
>         ecj already rejects @A(I.class).
>
>
>     A class-valued annotation element that refers to an inner class is
>     relatively unusual, but there's no reason to restrict it when this
>     is plainly a compiler scope bug (I versus Test.I).
>
>     I should have noted earlier that an annotation is never in a static
>     context per se -- only a statement or expression can be in a static
>     context. Annotations are inherently "static" even when applied to
>     clearly non-static source constructs such as the declaration of an
>     instance variable in a top level class -- the annotation's elements
>     are still on the hook to refer solely to "static things" (constant
>     expressions, enum constants, and the special case of a class literal).
>
>     Alex
>
>