Misleading compiler.err.cant.apply.symbol.1 when base class constructor is inaccessible

[Daniel Trebbien]

Should an issue be created for this in the JDK Bug System? I don't have the
ability to do this myself.

On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 1:28 PM, Maurizio Cimadamore <
maurizio.cimadamore at oracle.com> wrote:

> You are right - this is a long standing behavior - in javac the
> accessibility check is done very late, typically after checking for
> applicability; on the other hand, the JLS rules out candidates very early
> in the overload resolution process, so in this case the JLS would say
> there's no constructor. I believe the spirit of the implemented logic was
> to provide more information to the user, rather than just say 'cannot find
> symbol', but I agree with you that, while this normally works ok, in this
> specific case the error message ends up being misleading.
>
> Thanks
> Maurizio
>
> On 24/11/17 20:10, Daniel Trebbien wrote:
>
> As reported here https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=222487#c2
> javac can produce a misleading compiler.err.cant.apply.symbol.1 error
> message in cases where the base class constructor is inaccessible, either
> because it is private or package-private.
>
> Take the following two files:
>
> // base/Base.java
> package base;
> public class Base {
>     Base(String value) { }
> }
>
> // Derived.java
> import base.Base;
> public class Derived extends Base { }
>
> javac 9.0.1 produces the following:
>
> src/Derived.java:2: error: constructor Base in class Base cannot be
> applied to given types;
>
> public class Derived extends Base { }
>
>        ^
>
>   required: String
>
>   found: no arguments
>
>   reason: actual and formal argument lists differ in length
>
> This is misleading because it implies that by adding a Derived constructor
> to call Base(String), that the error can be fixed; however, doing so
> results in a compiler.err.report.access error because the Base(String)
> constructor is not accessible:
>
> src/Derived.java:4: error: Base(String) is not public in Base; cannot be
> accessed from outside package
>
>         super(value);
>
>         ^
>
>
>
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