Question

I was wondering what will be returned in a java program when you have multiple returns in a program.

private int numberReturner()
{
    if (a) return a;
    else if (b) return b;
    for (int i = 1; i < board.size()-1; i++)
    {
        if (c) return c;
    }
    return d;
}

So lets say a is true, (it should return a), but wouldn’t it return d because that is the final line of code in the whole program? Why is this so?

Sorry if I worded this a bit strangely…

Answer 1

Once any ‘return’ statement is encountered the method will exit execution and return that value.

That method will return d only if no other return statement is encountered before reaching that last line.