Question

I came across this bug in our code today and it took a while to figure. I found it interesting so I decided to share it. Here is a simplified version of the problem:

public class Test {

    static
    {
      text = "Hello";
    }

    public static String getTest() {
      return text + " World";
    }

    private static String text = null;
}

Guess what Test.getTest(); returns & why?

Answer 1

It should print “null world”. Static initializations are done in the order listed. If you move the declaration higher than the static block you should get “Hello World”.