[GROOVY-8999] Access to private fields and methods from subclass exhibits strange behavior

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 2.4.16
• Fix Version/s: 4.0.0-alpha-1, 3.0.5, 2.5.13
• Assignee: Eric Milles
• Reporter: Eric Milles
• Created: 18/Feb/19 18:12
• Updated: 05/Apr/24 20:35
• Resolved: 02/Jul/20 23:36

Description

This is probably just a slice of GROOVY-1591, GROOVY-3010, GROOVY-3142, GROOVY-5438, et al. Adding super. qualifier causes strange behaviors. Please consider the following:

class Foo {
  private String field = 'field'
  private String method() { 'method' }
}
class Bar extends Foo {
  def baz() {
    field // MissingPropertyException: No such property: field for class: Bar
    method() // MissingMethodException: No signature of method: Bar.method()
    this.field // MissingPropertyException: No such property: field for class: Bar
    this.method() // MissingMethodException: No signature of method: Bar.method()

    // so far, so good -- although Groovy allows access to private fields and methods from outside of Bar and Foo

    super.field // MissingMethodException: No signature of method: Bar.getField() -- that's strange
    super.method() // returns "method" -- Why is this okay?

    super.@field // MissingMethodException: No signature of method: Bar.getField() -- that's strange
    super.&method // returns MethodClosure that throws NPE when called:
    (super.&method)() // NullPointerException: Cannot invoke method call() on null object-- If super.method() works, why doesn't this?
  }
}

Issue Links

• is cloned by: GROOVY-9851 Private field and method use from subclass is inconsistent
• relates to: GROOVY-11319 Access to a private property of a parent object is not caught