Description Norbert Kuck 2006-02-01 15:22:42 EST

The Eclipse Java compiler does not generate correct byte code 
for the special case that an enum is empty (i.e. has no values).

In this case, it fails to generate a <clinit> method. As a 
result, the hidden ENUM$VALUES static variable remains null. 
This leads to a NullPointerException when calling the values() 
method (it tries to copy the ENUM$VALUES array and fails).

Correct behavior in this case would be to generate a <clinit>
method that initializes ENUM$VALUES to an array of length 0.

The following test program:
  public class EnumTest {
    enum NoValues {}
    public static void main(String[] args) {
      System.out.println(NoValues.values());
    }
  }

results in the following exception:
  Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
    at EnumTest$NoValues.values(EnumTest.java:1)
    at EnumTest.main(EnumTest.java:4)

but should print something like this (compiled with Sun javac):
  [LEnumTest$NoValues;@45a877

Tested on Eclipse Version: 3.1.2 (Build id: M20060118-1600). 
Earlier versions have the same bug.