Static Initialization Blocks

Question

As far as I understood the \"static initialization block\" is used to set values of static field if it cannot be done in one line.

But I do not understand why we ne

Answer 1

If they weren't in a static initialization block, where would they be? How would you declare a variable which was only meant to be local for the purposes of initialization, and distinguish it from a field? For example, how would you want to write:

public class Foo {
    private static final int widgets;

    static {
        int first = Widgets.getFirstCount();
        int second = Widgets.getSecondCount();
        // Imagine more complex logic here which really used first/second
        widgets = first + second;
    }
}

If first and second weren't in a block, they'd look like fields. If they were in a block without static in front of it, that would count as an instance initialization block instead of a static initialization block, so it would be executed once per constructed instance rather than once in total.

Now in this particular case, you could use a static method instead:

public class Foo {
    private static final int widgets = getWidgets();

    static int getWidgets() {
        int first = Widgets.getFirstCount();
        int second = Widgets.getSecondCount();
        // Imagine more complex logic here which really used first/second
        return first + second;
    }
}

... but that doesn't work when there are multiple variables you wish to assign within the same block, or none (e.g. if you just want to log something - or maybe initialize a native library).