CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javareturnreturn-type
Mei
Mei

Reputation: 35

Why isn't my return statement being recognized?

It says it must return a string. But it already is. Then it says that it must have a return statement. But there is one there.

public String description() {
    String description = "";
    if (description != null)
        return description;
}

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1159

Answers (2)

aemorales1
aemorales1

Reputation: 322

To answer your question the reason you get the error the you must have a return statement is that having the return statement within a conditional branch means that there is a possibility that it will not execute. Since this method requires a return type you must include an else condition to return a value so all branches are covered.

Since Java performs a "pseudo compilation" it doesn't know that "description" is clearly not null until it runtime.

I just saw that you are wanting the method to do nothing in the event "description" is null. In this case I would recommend throwing an exception: @SuppressWarnings("unused") public String description() throws ValidationException { String description = ""; if (description == null){ throw new ValidationException("Some Error Message"); } return description; }

Upvotes: 1

Aniruddha K.M
Aniruddha K.M

Reputation: 7511

because if description is null then that return statement is never executed. your code must be modfied to some thing like this

public String description() {
    String description = "";
    if (description != null){
        return description;
    }else{
     return null;
    }
}

I know that description is not equal to null but the compiler complains because if that if block is never executed then the method will not have a return statement, hence you need to have one outside it too.

Upvotes: 3

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