Overload resolution regression

[Remi Forax]

On 11/19/2013 01:43 AM, Jonathan Ross wrote:
> Hi,

Hi Johnathan,

>
> I recently started porting a 150k-line project to jdk 8 to try my hand at
> the recent changes in the collection libraries. (Hadn't done this since
> last year, my apologies!)
>
> I have run in to a large number of compilation errors: regressions in type
> inference and overload resolution. A lot of these are in unit tests using
> mockito and fest and other similar monadic apis that rely heavily on
> overload resolution.

It's not a regression, it's an enhancement :)

>
> The code snippet below is a distilled version of my typical compilation
> error: our test code relying on the compiler choosing the Object overload
> by default.
>
>
> import java.math.BigInteger;
>
> public class OverloadingRegression {
>
>      static <T> T unsafeCast(Object anObject) {
>          return (T) anObject;
>      }
>
>      public void showOverloadResolutionIssue() {
>          pickMe(unsafeCast(new String()));
>      }
>
>      private void pickMe(BigInteger o) { /* ClassCastException in
> 1.8.0-ea-b115 */ }
>
>      private void pickMe(Object o) { /* fine, picked in 1.6 & 1.7 */ }
> }
>
>
> Obviously the unsafeCast is not going to win any beauty prizes, but
> sometimes you just have to do this sort of thing.  My main point is: it
> used to work in java 7, it doesn't any more.
>
> Is this a known issue (or is it even expected behaviour)?

Yes, it's the expected behavior, when you try do inference inside a 
method call,
here unsafeCast is inside pickMe, in that case with jdk6 & 7, the inference
is not done and T is replaceb by its bound (Object), with jdk8, the 
compiler is smarter,
and find the most specific method first, here pickMe(BigInteger) is more
specific than pickMe(Object) and then infers T (T = BigInteger).

>
> I'm using 1.8.0-ea-b115, but I verified that it fails with all 1.8 jdks I
> have my box.  When I pass in -source 1.7 it does work. And when I do an
> explicit cast to Object (of course).

so this is the correct behavior for 8, the new stream API heavily relies 
on that,
and yes, this new semantics is not compatible with 1.7 in the case the 
inference was failing,
this is a known compatibility issue.

>
> -- Jonathan Ross
>

cheers,
Rémi