How to handle methods with inaccessible argument types?

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Java cleverly lets you call a method with an inaccessible argument type, by
simply passing null. For example, you may have:

package foo;
class Secret {
}

public class Foo {
    public void foo (Secret s) { ... }
}

package bar;
public class Bar {
    public void callFoo () {
        new Foo().foo(null);
    }
}

which is totally legal code. It is impossible for Bar to create an instance
of Secret, but it can pass null.

Now for the problem. We convert the foo() call into:

  RT.invoke("foo", new Class<?>[]{ Secret.class }, new Foo())

which references Secret.class by name and thus does not compile. Sigh.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by [email protected] on 17 May 2010 at 2:42

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Just to underscore that this is wacky. Replacing the body of callFoo() with the
following results in compilation failure: new Foo().foo((Secret)null).

Original comment by [email protected] on 17 May 2010 at 2:43