#9 Removing constants can be OK

[Stephen Colebourne]

Clirr objects when a static final constant is removed
from a class. However, this is permitted if the type of
the constant is primitive or a String.

See commons-collections 3.0-HEAD ReferenceMap

[Lars Kühne]

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You mean that compile time constants are inlined into the
client code and removing them will not affect compiled clients?

Which constant in ReferenceMap do you mean?

[Stephen Colebourne]

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The JLS says that primitive and String constants must be
inlined at compile time (IIRC, always worth checking...)
Object based constants are not inlined, so should cause the
error in clirr if moved.

Thus although ReferenceMap.HARD, .WEAK and .SOFT have
been deleted, this causes no binary incompatibility (they are
int constants). (The constants can be removed completely
without binary incompatibility - in this case, they actually
moved to a superclass)

[Lars Kühne]

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Clirr 0.4 differentiates between binary and source
compatibility ("bc" and "sc").
Removing a field that is a compile time constant is marked
as a bc warning and a sc error.

Not closing this request because I think we are not handling
"moved to superclass" correctly.