Invalid reference to anonymous class in ?: operator with cast and a null value.

FULL PRODUCT VERSION :
java version "1.4.2_03"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.2_03-b02)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.2_03-b02, mixed mode)

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Linux xxx 2.6.4-52-default #1 Wed Apr 7 02:08:30 UTC 2004 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
SuSE 9.1

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
Using a ?: operator with a constant as the condition, and an instanciation of an anonymous class and a null value as clauses causes the anonymous class not to be found at runtime if the resulting evaluation is the null value.

Note: this used to work in previous versions of the Java compiler (1.2.x) because there was no optimisation to remove unused anonymous classes.

STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
Compile and execute the source provided.

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
The program should compile and execute without errors.
ACTUAL -
The program crashes with a NoClassDefFoundError when executed.

ERROR MESSAGES/STACK TRACES THAT OCCUR :
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Test1$1

REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
public final class Test1
  {
    private static final boolean DO_BUG=true;

      // Workaround: cast null to Base
    private static Base base= DO_BUG?
      //(Base)null
      null
        :
      new Base()
        {
          public final String test()
          {
            return("anonymous");
          }
        };
    
    private Test1() {}

    public static void main(String[] argv)
    {
      if(base==null)
             System.out.println("no base");
        else System.out.println(base.test());
    }

    private static abstract class Base
      {
        public Base() {}

        public abstract String test();
      }
  }
---------- END SOURCE ----------

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
The null value (or the instanciation) must be casted to the class of the variable.
###@###.### 2005-03-16 12:35:35 GMT