IMO they should treat it exactly like they treat uninitialized variables.
void test1(boolean b) {
String s;
if (b) {
return;
} else {
s = "test";
}
System.out.println(s);
}
This code compiles.
void test2(boolean b) {
String s;
if (b) {
if ("a".equals("a")) {
return;
}
} else {
s = "test";
}
System.out.println(s);
}
This code does not compile. But it does not mean that println will try to resolve s to something else. I think that they should have gone to a similar route, where declared variable will be available for entire lexical block where `if` was used, but initialized only inside matched branch. Usage in other code would error with "variable might not have initialized" consistently how it works now.
Of course that would require to shadow previous declaration for consecutive `if`-s. But it would be much more obvious and understandable. Actually the whole construction would be just a syntax sugar almost expressible with current Java constructions:
/*
if (o instanceof String s) {
System.out.println(s.length());
}
//System.out.println(s.length()); // variable might not have initialized
if (o instanceof Number s) {
System.out.println(s.intValue());
}
*/
String s;
if (o instanceof String) {
s = (String) o;
System.out.println(s.length());
}
//System.out.println(s.length()); // variable might not have initialized
Number s$; // no variable shadowing in Java now, but it could work
if (o instanceof Number) {
s$ = (Number) o;
System.out.println(s$.intValue());
}
//System.out.println(s$.intValue()); // variable might not have initialized
and would be directly expressible if Java would allow variable name shadowing which is a good thing as proven by Go and Rust (although that would be incompatible change for old code, but allowing variable shadowing for patterns would not be incompatible change, because old code does not have pattern variables).
Of course I did not think about this problem for too long and probably missed something important, so that's just my 2 cents. I guess, developers took that path for a reason.
Basically they want to following code to work:
String s;
void test(Object o) {
if (o instanceof String s) {
System.out.println(s); // local variable o
} else {
System.out.println(s); // this.s
}
}
and I'd argue that this code should not compile! It's bad code. If developer wants to use `this.s` he should explicitly write that.