unreachable statements

[preeti khane]

Can someone tell me all the possible situations for unreachable statements
I know a few:
- while(false){ ....}
- a return when the try catch finally has return statements

import java.io.*;
    public class Test027
    {   
        public static void main(String args[]) {
            System.out.println(method());
        }
        static int method() {
            try { 
                throw new IOException();
            }
            catch (IOException ioe) {
                System.out.println("0");
                return 0;
            }
            finally {
                System.out.println("1");
                return 1;
            }              
            return 2;        
        }
    }

  

- a statement after a break in an if enclosed in a loop
any other examples?
thanks

[Valentin Crettaz]

You can find all rules for unreachable statements at JLS 14.20 Unreachable Statements

[Jon Dornback]

an interesting side note (discovered by accident) is the empty statement (ie, a ";" on a line with nothing else). in java 1.3, a statement like break;; or return;; was accepted by the compiler, but if the same code is compiled under 1.4 it is a compiler error because the second ; is considered an unreachable statement. (not that it has any use, it was just a typo that raised a point about compiler differences).