Metadata annotation facility - does it work?

Question

This might not be the right forum ... if it is not, does anybody know which forum would be better?
I'm using the beta release of the compiler and tried to define an annotation type, annotate a class and read the annotation. Pretty simple and straightforward, but my innocent attempt made the compiler crash with an uncaught AssertionError.
Since compilers usually do not crash and this is my first attempt with annotations I am wondering whether the annotation facility is supposed to work in the beta release. Does anybody know? Has anybody successfully done anything with annotations?
Perhaps it's my fault and I have been doing something really, really malicious. Can anybody tell? My example looks like this:
public interface SortingOrder<T> {
    boolean isLess(T t1, T t2);
public final class Name {
    // ... stuff ...
public final class LastNameLess implements SortingOrder<Name> {
     public boolean isLess(Name n1, Name n2) {
                      // ... whatever ...
                      return false;
public @interface SortingOrderAnnotation {
    Class<? extends SortingOrder> value();
@SortingOrderAnnotation(LastNameLess.class)
public final class AnnotationReader {
   // ... I intended using the SortingOrder class here but I didn't get that far, hence this is empty  ...
public final class Test {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
                           AnnotationReader ref = new AnnotationReader();  // <<< kills the compiler
}

Answer 1

Yeah I see the same thing with beta 1, by compiling *.java followed by Test.java
The simplest I've got it down to, with an identical stack trace, is this:
SomeAnnotation.java:    @interface SomeAnnotation {
        Class<?> value();
    }Annotated.java:
    @SomeAnnotation(Object.class)
    class Annotated { }Foo.java:
    class Foo {
            public static void main(String[] args) {
                    Annotated a;
    }If you save those three files in an empty directory, cd into that directory and, using beta 1, issue:
javac -source 1.5 *.java
javac -source 1.5 Foo.java... you get this:
java.lang.AssertionError
        at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader$AnnotationDeproxy.deproxy(ClassReader.java:994)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader$AnnotationDeproxy.deproxyCompound(ClassReader.java:967)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader$AnnotationDeproxy.deproxyCompoundList(ClassReader.java:955)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.jvm.ClassReader$AnnotationCompleter.enterAnnotation(ClassReader.java:1107)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Annotate.flush(Annotate.java:92)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.visitVarDef(Attr.java:509)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.tree.Tree$VarDef.accept(Tree.java:511)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribTree(Attr.java:256)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribStat(Attr.java:291)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribStats(Attr.java:307)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.visitBlock(Attr.java:562)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.tree.Tree$Block.accept(Tree.java:540)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribTree(Attr.java:256)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribStat(Attr.java:291)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.visitMethodDef(Attr.java:498)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.tree.Tree$MethodDef.accept(Tree.java:482)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribTree(Attr.java:256)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribStat(Attr.java:291)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribClassBody(Attr.java:2301)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribClass(Attr.java:2235)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.comp.Attr.attribClass(Attr.java:2188)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.JavaCompiler.compile(JavaCompiler.java:412)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:593)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.main.Main.compile(Main.java:545)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.Main.compile(Main.java:44)
        at com.sun.tools.javac.Main.main(Main.java:35)langer: is that what you're seeing?
I can't reproduce it with the latest CAP build (42) in either case.
Mark