Consider:

class ArrayClone {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    args.clone();
  }
}

Compiling this with javac (1.3 version) and running javap on the resulting class
file, we get:

javap -c ArrayClone
Compiled from ArrayClone.java
class ArrayClone extends java.lang.Object {
    ArrayClone();
    public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
}

Method ArrayClone()
   0 aload_0
   1 invokespecial #1 <Method java.lang.Object()>
   4 return

Method void main(java.lang.String[])
   0 aload_0
   1 invokevirtual #2 <Method java.lang.Object clone()>
   4 pop
   5 return


Note that the call to clone refers to Object rather than to the array type
String[]. This is wrong under both old and new JLS rules for compilation.
This only matters for illegal programs, so it is not a big deal.

gilad.bracha@eng 2000-04-12