unreachable code

[Mike Ngo]

Does anyone know why line 2 is OK?

1) int x = 0;
2) if (false) { x=1; } // OK
3) while (false) { x=2; } // error - unreachable code

[Henry Wong]

It is actually mentioned in the specification. The reason it is okay is to allow for conditional code... like ...

  boolean isDebugging = false;
  if (isDebugging) {
    // Log debugging messages here
  }

Henry