Question

What happens to the return A code in my catch block?

public class TryCatchFinallyTest {

    @Test
    public void test_FinallyInvocation()
    {
        String returnString = this.returnString();
        assertEquals("B", returnString);
    }

    String returnString()
    {
        try
        {
            throw new RuntimeException("");
        }
        catch (RuntimeException bogus)
        {
            System.out.println("A");
            return "A";
        }
        finally
        {
            System.out.println("B");
            return "B";
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

The finally get’s executed right before any return’s / exits from the method. Therefore, when you do

return "A";

it executes like so:

System.out.println("B");//Finally block
return "B";//Finally block
return "A";//Return from exception catch

And thus the “B” is returned, not the “A”