Question

If you have two if statements for:

int n = -1;

if (n < 0)
    return null;

if (n <= 1)
    return "yay";

Will it return null or yay? Will it run through the code top to bottom and stop at the first if statement, or will the last one be used?

Answer 1

The first if statement will be evaluated first, of course. n which is -1 is in fact < 0, so the body of code associated with that if statement will be executed. null will be returned.

What might be confusing you is that, though the second if statement would evaluate true, it will never be evaluated. This is because a return statement, when executed, leaves the function/method it is inside of.

If you wrote:

int x = 0;
return x;
x = 5;

x would be set to 0. x would be returned. Any lines of code after the return would never execute.

Here’s another example, to clarify:

int x = 10;
if(x < 0)
   return;
x = 0;

x would be set to 10. x which is 10 is in fact not < 0, so the if statement’s body will be skipped. x would be set to 0.