Using a class literal causes the outermost enclosing class to be initialized too early. Consider

class A {
    static {
System.out.println("You shouldn't see this.");
    }
    public static class B {
B() {
Object o = Main.class; // line N
}
    };
}

class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
new A.B();
    }
}

The presence of line N causes the program to print "You shouldn't see this.". When that line is removed, that message is not printed.

neal.gafter@Eng 2001-01-03