Unreachable statements

[Divya Eknath]

I am confused about the unreachable statements in java.It is said that to place assertions at the place which is unreachable is a good practice, but then again if assert statement is unreachable it gices compile-time error.I referred to JLS to understand the concept of unreachable statements, but sadly i don't have enough time to go through and understand everything as i have exam in few hours

[Arvind Sampath]

The key here is if the compiler is able to determine that a particular line/segment of code will not be reached during run time, it will flag an Unreachable Code error.

  public int returnAnInt()
{
if(isEverythingOk())
return 1;
else
return 0;
//The statements below will throw an Unreachable Code Error at compile time
        assert false;
System.out.print("reached the end of the method");
 
}  

In the above code snippet, the compiler would determine that the last two statements would not be reached. Hence it flags an error.

It is said that to place assertions at the place which is unreachable is a good practice, but then again if assert statement is unreachable it gices compile-time error.

Well the authors of that statement would have most probably meant to put assertions at places which are unreachable logically. Yep, they meant your business logic.

Have a look at this snippet

  public int returnAnInt()
{
if(isEverythingOk())
return 1;
assert false;
        return 0; 
}