Name: laC46010 Date: 08/17/99



New JDK1.3 compiler doesn't report about illegal forward reference to static
variable in static inializers before variable's declaration. Note that JDK1.3
oldjavac compiler correctly reports the error. Corresponding assertion in JLS
8.5 (p.175) is:
"The static initializers may not refer to class variables
declared in the class whose declarations appear textually after
the use, even though these class variables are in scope. This
restriction is designed to catch, at compile time, circular or
otherwise malformed initializations.".

See reduced variant of "clss19104" JCK test and logs below.

----------------------------------------------------------------clss19104.java
class clss19104 {
  static int i,j;
  static {
    j = i - 1;
    i = j < 0 ? k - 2: 1; // compile-time error
  }
  static int k = j + 3;
  public static void main(String argv[])
  {
     System.out.println("i= " + i);
     System.out.println("j= " + j);
     System.out.println("k= " + k);
  }
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Results of compilation:

novo37% /export/ld25/java/dest/jdk1.3N/solaris/bin/javac -d . clss19104.java
novo37% echo $status
0
novo37% /export/ld25/java/dest/jdk1.3N/solaris/bin/oldjavac -d .
clss19104.java
clss19104.java:5: Can't make forward reference to k in class clss19104.
    i = j < 0 ? k - 2: 1; // compile-time error
                ^
1 error
novo37% echo $status
1
novo37%
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

======================================================================