Says cannot reference f before supertype constructor has been called

[Prashanth Muthyala]

public class Test19 {
float f;
Test19(){
this(f); //I did not get this line....
f = 3;
}
Test19(float f){
System.out.println(f);
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
Test19 t = new Test19();
}
}

[Nathaniel Stoddard]

Basically, a class's instance variables can't be accessed until all the parent constructors have done their thing .. so obviously, you can't send an instance variable as an argument to a parent constructor since it isn't really there yet.

[Animesh Shrivastava]

Prashant,
Its not giving the error as u said, its saying "Cannot refer to an instance field f while explicitly invoking a constructor"
An instance field belongs to an instance. So, i guess before creating an instance u are trying to use the instance field, thats why the error props up.

But u can use a static field as that belongs to a class
like this is true:
public class Test19 {
static float f;
Test19(){
this(f); //No error here
f = 3;
}
Test19(float f){
System.out.println(f);
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
Test19 t = new Test19();
}
}