Annotation on public method does not work if annotation is placed before public modifier

[Nikolay Botev]

(on behalf of Alex Borisov)

Nikolays-MacBook-Air:bin nbotev$ uname -a
Darwin Nikolays-MacBook-Air.local 14.4.0 Darwin Kernel Version 14.4.0: Thu May 28 11:35:04 PDT 2015; root:xnu-2782.30.5~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

Nikolays-MacBook-Air:bin nbotev$ java -version
java version "1.9.0-ea"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.9.0-ea-b72)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 1.9.0-ea-b72, mixed mode)

JShell verison: kulla-0.610-20150709005843 (also reproducible on kulla-0.710)

——

Summary: Using an annotation on a public method does not work if the annotation is placed before the public modifier, but it works if the annotation is placed after the public modifier.

Reproduction steps:

-> @interface MyTest {}
|  Added annotation interface MyTest

-> @MyTest void boo() {}
|  Added method boo()

-> @MyTest public void foo() {}
|  Error:
|  repeated modifier
|  @MyTest public void foo() {}
|          ^
|  Warning:
|  Modifier 'public' not permitted in top-level declarations, ignored
|  @MyTest public void foo() {}
|  ^------------^

-> public @MyPublic void foo() {}
|  Warning:
|  Modifier 'public' not permitted in top-level declarations, ignored
|  public @MyPublic void foo() {}
|  ^--------------^
|  Added method foo(), however, it cannot be referenced until class MyPublic is declared

->