Return Statement and Finally

[vasansrini arumugam]

Return Statement: - The last control statement in a method is return. It causes program control to transfer back to the caller of the method. It immediately terminates the method in which it is executed.

Finally: - The finally block always executes when the try block exits. This ensures that the finally block is executed even if an unexpected exception occurs.

But in the below code, even though the compiler hits the return statement in catch block the control immediately does not go back to the caller function. It executes finally block, increments i and then the return happens from the finally block. So the returned output for "i" is 2.

public static int fun() {
 try {
  int i = 0;
  throw new FileNotFoundException();
  i++;
  return i;
 } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
  i++;
  return i;
 } finally {
  i++;
  return i;
 }
}

1)Why the control does not go back to caller function as soon as it hits return in catch block.
2)Is return behaving differently in "try catch finally" conditions?

[Vijay Tidake]

Hi,

Finally block is going to execute in any condition whether exception occurs or not or try and catch having the return statement.

class main {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		System.out.println(new main().call());//This gets the return value from finally block and not from try block.The return value in the try block is skipped.
	}

	private int call() {
		try {
			System.out.println(0);
			return 0;
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.out.println(1);
			return 1;
		} finally {
			System.out.println(2);
			return 2;
		}

	}
}

Thanks

[Will Myers]

But in the below code, even though the compiler hits the return statement in catch block the control immediately does not go back to the caller function. It executes finally block, increments i and then the return happens from the finally block. So the returned output for "i" is 2.

Actually this code doesn't compile because i is out of scope in the catch and finally blocks

[vasansrini arumugam]

Sorry Will, please assume "i" is declared outside of try block.
@Vijay - Thanks for the reply vijay.

P.S : More preference is given to finally than the return statement.