When to use intern() on String literals

Question

I see a lot of legacy code like this:

class A {
    public static final String CONSTANT = \"value\".intern();
    ...
}

I don\'t see any re

Answer 1

The use of intern() with the constant string literal is a waste of time as the literal will already be interned as specified by section 3.10.5. String Literals of The Java® Language Specification.

Quoting from Java SE 8 Edition:

Moreover, a string literal always refers to the same instance of class String. This is because string literals - or, more generally, strings that are the values of constant expressions (§15.28) - are "interned" so as to share unique instances, using the method String.intern.

I guess the coder didn't appreciate this fact.

Edit:

As kdgregory has pointed out there is an impact on how this constant may be inlined.

1- https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se8/html/jls-3.html#jls-3.10.5