How to avoid 'the local variable may not have been initialized'?

Question

/*This is a program that calculates Internet advertising rates based on what features/options you choose.
 * 
 *  
 */

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Inter         


        

Answer 1

A good way to avoid such issues is to set the to be assigned variable as final and uninitialized before the checks. This will force you to set a value before you can use/read it.

final textCostTmp;
if (condition1) {
  textCostTmp = ...;
} else if (condition2) {
  textCostTmp = ...;
} 
// if you use textCostTmp here the compiler will complain that it is uninitialized !
textCost = textCostTmp;

To solve this DO NOT initialize the variable as you may miss the missing else case. The only proper solution is to add an else case to cover all possible cases ! I consider it bad practice to initialize non final variables except for some rare scenarios like a counter in a loop.

The proposed approach will force you to handle all possible cases, now and in the future (easier to maintain). The compiler is a bit stupid at times (cannot figure that numberOfWords > 35 is the else)...but the compiler is your ally not your enemy...