Hibernate

Did you ever want to run something the first, and only first, time a class was being used.
Perhaps wanted to do some complex calculations and assign it to a constant.

One way to do this is by writing, for example:

Java Code:

public class YourClass
{
    public static final int YOUR_CONSTANT = constantValue();

    private static int constantValue()
    {
        int value1 = 0, value2 = 1;
        int value = 0;
        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        {
            value = value1 + value2;
            value2 = value1;
            value1 = value;
        }
        return value:
    }
}

All static variables are assigned direct when the class is first being used,
so if you want to print "Hello", you could do so in a method used by a dummy variable.

Java Code:

public class YourClass
{
    private static final Void IM_A_DUMMY = printHello();

    private static Void printHello()
    {
        System.out.println("Hello");
        return null;
    }
}

But there is a much prettier way to do this, especially for more complex code: by using a class initialiser:

Java Code:

public class MyClass
{
    private static final Void DUMMY = dummysCode();
    public static final int VALUE;

    /**
     * Class initialiser
     */
    static
    {
        System.out.println("Hello");
        VALUE = 10;
    }

    private static final Void ANOTHER_DUMMY = anotherDummysCode();

    static
    {
        System.out.println("Initialised!");
    }



    private static Void dummysCode()
    {
        System.out.println("Dummy's code");
        return null;
    }

    private static Void anotherDummysCode()
    {
        System.out.println("Another dummy's code");
        return null;
    }



    public static void main(final String... arg)
    {
        System.out.println(VALUE);
    }

}

Running main() will print:
Dummy's code
Hello
Another dummy's code
Initialised!
10

Variable as assigned from the top down, running any class initialiser in the way.