Can't access public static fields inherited from a protected static interface from scala code

[scabug]

this code, for a very ugly API:

val ops: java.util.ArrayList[ContentProviderOperation] = new java.util.ArrayList[ContentProviderOperation]
    ops.add(ContentProviderOperation.newInsert(RawContacts.CONTENT_URI)
            .withValue(RawContacts.ACCOUNT_TYPE, AccountType)
            .withValue(RawContacts.ACCOUNT_NAME, AccountName).build)

doesn't compile

[error] <snip>.scala:63: value ACCOUNT_TYPE is not a member of object android.provider.ContactsContract.RawContacts
[error]             .withValue(RawContacts.ACCOUNT_TYPE, AccountType)
[error]                                    ^
[error] <snip>.scala:64: value ACCOUNT_NAME is not a member of object android.provider.ContactsContract.RawContacts
[error]             .withValue(RawContacts.ACCOUNT_NAME, AccountName).build)

RawContacts is a public static class which implements the SyncColumns protected static interface (among others), both defined in android.provider.ContactsContract.
RawContacts inherits those public static fields from SyncColumns, but scalac just doesn't see them.

The scaloid guy wrote a workaround but it's only a hardcoded bridge for this specific API. Note that he refers to #1086 but that seems like a different bug.

[scabug]

Imported From: https://issues.scala-lang.org/browse/SI-9272?orig=1
Reporter: Mikel Pérez (mikelpr)
Affected Versions: 2.11.6
See #1086

[scabug]

@soc said:
So RawContacts can't be used because the member is (correctly) not there (static members don't participate in inheritance) and SyncColumns can't be used because it is protected?

It seems like it's not exactly the same symptom as in #1086, but the same root cause.

[scabug]

Mikel Pérez (mikelpr) said:
yep exactly that

[hrhino]

A reproduction that doesn't require Android:

hhoughton:tmp hhoughton$ cat Ax.java Sax.java Wax.java
// Ax.java
package a;

public class Ax {
  protected static interface Max {
    static int Bax = 1;
  }
}

// Sax.java
package a;

public class Sax implements Ax.Max {}


// Wax.java
package b;

import a.*;

public class Wax {
  int hax = Sax.Bax;
}


hhoughton:tmp hhoughton$ javac Ax.java Sax.java Wax.java
hhoughton:tmp hhoughton$ scala-launch 2.12.4-bin-c2a5883 -cp .
Welcome to Scala 2.12.4-bin-c2a5883 (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.8.0_121).
Type in expressions for evaluation. Or try :help.

scala> val flax = Sax.Bax
<console>:11: error: value Bax is not a member of object Sax
       val flax = Sax.Bax
                      ^

[SethTisue]

@hrhino why closed?

[hrhino]

Ach sorry. I thought this was the one I closed in scala/scala#6058 (was double checking regarding the regression tickets surrounding that, since the github "auto-close" didn't work).

[SethTisue]

I would be comfortable simply closing this as "not a bug", working as designed. Scala doesn't have statics. We must interoperate with them to whatever extent that is actually needed, but I don't think we need to imitate everything about how javac handles them. (see @lrytz's comment at #11226 (comment))

[lrytz]

The issue is there's no way to acess Bax (in #9272 (comment)) in Scala, but it's possible in Java, so some Java API might be not usable in Scala. You'd have to write an accessor in Java. Maybe that's ok?

[SethTisue]

Ah, I hadn't understood that, thanks for clarifying.

I'll modify my statement, then: doing anything at all about this seems low priority to me, but of course we'd consider a pull request if someone has a design and implementation in mind.