Question

This compiles:

class Ex1 {
    public int show() {
        try {
            int a=10/10;
            return 10;
        }   
        catch(ArithmeticException e) {
            System.out.println(e);
        }
        finally {
            System.out.println("Finally");
        }
        System.out.println("hello");
        return 20;
    }
}

on the other hand this doesn’t:

class Ex15 {
    public int show() {
        try {
            int a=10/0;
            return 10;
        }
        catch(ArithmeticException e) {
            System.out.println(e);
        }
        finally {
            System.out.println("Finally");
            return 40;
        }

        System.out.println("hello");
        return 20;
    }
}

and gives unreachable statement System.out.println(“hello”); error. why is it so?

Answer 1

The finally has a return so you are probably getting an unreachable code block error.

finally
{   
    System.out.println("Finally"); 
    return 40;
}
System.out.println("hello"); // unreachable code
return 20;

This is actually a compile-time error in Java. See section 14.20.

It is a compile-time error if a
statement cannot be executed because
it is unreachable.