Missing return statement... but there is one

[Eleeist]

Hi,

Trivial problem, I know. But somehow I cannot figure it out.

private static String[] checkAccountStatus() {
  
        try {
        
            String XMLUrl = "url";

            DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
            DocumentBuilder builder  = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
            Document document = builder.parse(new URL(XMLUrl).openStream());
            XPath xpath = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
            XPathExpression expr = xpath.compile("//result/*/text()");

            Object result = expr.evaluate(document, XPathConstants.NODESET);

            NodeList nodes = (NodeList) result;

            String[] resultArray;
            resultArray = new String[nodes.getLength()];

            for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) {
                
                resultArray[i] = nodes.item(i).getNodeValue();

            }
            
            return resultArray;
            
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        
    }

I get missing return statement error. But wait... don't I return resultArray?

[DarrylBurke]

What happens if an Exception is thrown in the try block and execution passes to the catch(...) block? Where's the return statement then?

db

[Eleeist]

I can't put return resultArray in the catch block. So what I'm supposed to do?

[DarrylBurke]

You can't and you shouldn't want to -- because if you hit the catch(...) block it means something has gone wrong and resultArray, if it's even initialized, doesn't contain valid data.

You have two options here: throw the Exception instead of catching it, and let the caller deal with it. This approach seems more correct to me than the alternative, which is to return null or a contrived String[] from after the catch block. In the second case, the caller will have to test the validity of the return value.

Have you gone through the Exceptions tutorial? Lesson: Exceptions (The Java™ Tutorials > Essential Classes)

db

[Eleeist]

I was throwing errors before, and then I decided to switch to try blocks... Now everything is clear.

Thanks.