[GROOVY-2836] Misleading MissingMethodException thrown when this() is called inside a constructor

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 1.5.6, 1.6-beta-1
• Fix Version/s: 1.6-rc-1, 1.5.8, 1.7-beta-1
• Component/s: command line processing
• Assignee: Roshan Dawrani
• Reporter: Guillaume Sauthier
• Created: 16/May/08 16:54
• Updated: 23/Dec/08 05:58
• Resolved: 03/Dec/08 22:11

Description

class Foo {
    Foo(String s) {}

    Foo(Date d) {
        println "call to this() must be the first statement of a ctor"
        this(d.toString())
    }
}

new Foo(new Date())

In the snippet above, I'm calling this() after a println call.
But in Java, it is mandatory that calls to this() or super() inside a constructor are the first statements of the block.
Here I get the following stacktrace:

groovy.lang.MissingMethodException: No signature of method: Foo.call() is applicable for argument types: (java.lang.String) values: {Fri May 16 23:48:20 CEST 2008}
	at Foo.invokeMethod(Script35)
	at Foo.<init>(Script35:6)
	at Script35.run(Script35:10)

The compiler should check that calls to this() or super() are done as the first statement, and not afterwards.