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Illegal forward referencing

 
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Why this example doesn't give an error of Illegal forward referencing? and how come output is 0 and not 10?

public class A118
{
private int i = giveMeJ();
private int j = 10;
private int giveMeJ()
{
return j;
}

public static void main(String args[])
{
System.out.println((new A118()).i);
}
}
 
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Because j is not initialized when giveMeJ() is invoked by i.
 
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hi sachin

that was a nice question ...even i get the same doubt ...
fnds,the variables are intialised before the constructor is called ..so when the method is invoked how come the compiler know the value of j....
i missing somewhere in my concepts about the instance variable intialisation.
can anybody plz explain this ....

thanks & regards

srikanth
 
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It has to do with the order in which in which a new instance gets created. The order is (roughly) as follows:

1. Memory is allocated for the object
2. Instance variables are initialized to their default values (in this case, i and j are initialized to 0 because that's the default for ints)
3. Constructor hierarchy is invoked for all parent objects (in this case, none)
4. Execute instance initializers (this is where i gets assigned to the result of giveMeJ() -- which returns 0 because j is still 0 -- and j gets assigned to 10)
5. Execute the rest of the constructor body

Of course, the order of the initialization matters (illegal forward referencing). For example, on my machine, the following code yields:

0
10
10



But since j *is* initialized to 0 before the method call, you won't get the illegal forward referencing error.

For more info, see section 12.5 of the JLS.

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/execution.html#12.5

See also this explanation of object initialization. The whole article is pretty good.

EDIT: Fixing code example, and added additional link.

[ August 18, 2005: Message edited by: Ryan Kade ]

[ August 18, 2005: Message edited by: Ryan Kade ]
[ August 18, 2005: Message edited by: Ryan Kade ]
 
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