java ternary operator

Question

Can someone explain why this code?

Collection c = (5 == 5) ? new ArrayList() : new HashSet();

produces the following compiler error:

Incompatible conditional operand types ArrayList and HashSet

For reasons that I don't understand, the following fixes the problem

Collection c = (5 == 5) ? (Collection) new ArrayList() : new HashSet();

I'm using Java 1.4.

Answer 1

This was a bug in 1.4 and has been fixed according bugreport 5080917.

Evaluation This is a bug.

xxxxx@xxxxx 2004-07-30