Question

I’m experiencing an interesting discrepancy between what Eclipse and my JDK considers legal java.

Eclipse compiles the following class without a hitch, while the JDK on Mac OS X produces the error included below.

public class Builder {  
    private class Item {}

    public void addItem(Item i) {}

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Builder() {{
            addItem(new Item());
        }};
    }
}

 

$ javac Builder.java 
Builder.java:9: non-static variable this cannot be referenced from a static context
            addItem(new Item());
                    ^
1 error

Making the Item class static resolves the problem, but it left me a bit curious: Is Eclipse being lenient and compiling code that is not actually valid? Did I stumble upon an eccentricity of the Mac OS X JDK? Am I missing something?

Update
Might be relevant to include the following

$ java -version
java version "1.6.0_33"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_33-b03-424-11M3720)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.8-b03-424, mixed mode)

Update 2

Making the Item more visible (default, protected or public) also satisfies the JDK compiler.

Answer 1

javac 1.7.0_04 compiles the source without error, so I’d suggest this is a bug in javac 1.6.