Question

I saw something today talking about this:

aClass something;
while (condition) {
    something = new aClass();
    ...
}

while (condition) {
    aClass something = new aClass();
    ...
}

It said you should use the second one rather than the first. Is this true, and if so, why?

Answer 1

The second method keeps the something variable only in the scope of that specific loop iteration.
If you want to use the object outside the loop and / or keep the changes saved between iterations then you must use the first method.

Also, the second method doesn’t define multiple variables, the compiler will usually optimize it in a way that makes sure only one variable is defined.