Javassist CtMethod.make() gives "syntax error" on array initialization using empty brackets

Question

I am using Javassist to build a runtime class. I am creating a CtMethod:

CtMethod m = CtMethod.make(constructMethodSource, bclass);

Inside "constructMethodSource" is this line which is a legitimate line of Java code:

java.lang.Object[] args = new java.lang.Object[] {};

With that, make() throws a syntax error:

[source error] syntax error near "bject[] {};"

I played with it and instead initialized my empty array a different way:

java.lang.Object[] args = new java.lang.Object[0];

That made Javassist happy but I'm wondering why does Javassist choke on the first line? Is that a known limitation or a bug or am I doing something foolish?

Answer 1

Having looked into this, the best answer I can come up with is that this is a bug of omission. According to the documentation it "should work", but it doesn't. Luckily the workaround is trivial, simply initialize your arrays with "new Object[0];".

Answer 2

http://www.csg.is.titech.ac.jp/~chiba/javassist/tutorial/tutorial2.html (section 4.7) says: Array initializers, a comma-separated list of expressions enclosed by braces { and }, are not available unless the array dimension is one.