Potential error for Sybex Practice Tests 11

[Miles Jiang]

Chapter 2, Question # 28: The code contains six pairs of curly braces. How many pairs can be removed without changing the behavior?

public static void main(String[] args) {
    int secret = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        while (i < 10) {
            if (i == 5) {
                System.out.println("if");
            } else {
                System.out.println("in");
                System.out.println("else");
            }
        }	
    }	
    switch (secret) {
        case 0: System.out.println("zero");
    }	
}

Since there is no termination condition or break statement inside the if-else block, the code runs but never ends.

The solution I think is to add "i++;" or "break;" to if and else blocks, respectively:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    int secret = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
        while (i < 10) {
            if (i == 5) {
                System.out.println("if");
                break;
            } else {
                System.out.println("in");
                System.out.println("else");
                break;
            }
        }	
    }	
    switch (secret) {
        case 0: System.out.println("zero");
    }	
}

Now the curly braces of for (lines 3/14) and while (lines 4/13) are optional, while the braces of if-else (lines 5/8 & 8/12), switch (lines 15/17), and the main method (lines 1/18) are required.

If so, the answer to this question should be corrected correspondingly: there are two instead of three pairs of curly braces can be removed. That is, the correct answer is Option B instead of C.

[Paul Clapham]

Miles Jiang wrote:Since there is no termination condition or break statement inside the if-else block, the code runs but never ends.

True.

The solution I think is to add "i++;" or "break;" to if and else blocks, respectively

The solution to what problem? The question asks you to remove pairs of curly braces while preserving the behaviour of the code. Yes, the behaviour includes never ending, but so what?

[Miles Jiang]

Hmmm...tricky.