java.lang.constant.ClassDesc and TypeDescriptor for hidden class??

[John Rose]

On Apr 8, 2020, at 3:31 PM, John Rose <john.r.rose at oracle.com> wrote:
> 
> In both c and c’ there will probably be a cascading failure
> if the name foo/Bar/123Z or foo/Bar is resolved.  In c’ there
> is an additional cascading failure when the user that was
> parsing the signature goes back for more parameters and
> finds a slash (instead of LZBHCIJFD[).  The thing that tipped
> me over to c’ is that extra diagnostic: Even though it happens
> after the user picked up the bad descriptor, it happens closer
> to the place where the error has its root cause, which is that
> somebody is trying to parse an (intentionally) illegal descriptor.

P.S. Having the slash+suffix *outside* the L; envelope basically
rubs any parser’s nose in the fact that there’s something illegal
here.  Putting it inside the envelope hides the error from the
parser—which may be a good thing sometimes!  But it means
that the odd name foo/Bar.123Z will float somewhere else
and may or may not be misinterpreted.  If it’s handed to
Class.forName you can bet that the dot will change its meaning.
On balance, I slightly prefer the fail-fast properties of c’.