about bug: 8020216: Compile time error isn't shown when final class variable is not assigned

[Vicente-Arturo Romero-Zaldivar]

Hi Alex,

Regarding the mentioned bug entry, I have a patch that solves the issue
but then I have the following example taken from javac code:

private final TreePath treePath;
private final DocCommentTree docComment;
private final DocTreePath parent;

      public DocTreePath(DocTreePath p, DocTree t) {
          if (t.getKind() == DocTree.Kind.DOC_COMMENT) {
              throw new IllegalArgumentException("Use 
DocTreePath(TreePath, DocCommentTree) to construct DocTreePath for a 
DocCommentTree.");
          } else {
              treePath = p.treePath;
              docComment = p.docComment;
              parent = p;
          }
          leaf = t;
      }

with the patch javac says:

error: variable treePath might not have been initialized
error: variable docComment might not have been initialized
error: variable parent might not have been initialized

so this means that whenever we have such a code we will have to do:

          if (t.getKind() == DocTree.Kind.DOC_COMMENT) {
              treePath = null;
              docComment = null;
              parent = null;
              throw new IllegalArgumentException("Use 
DocTreePath(TreePath, DocCommentTree) to construct DocTreePath for a 
DocCommentTree.");
          } else {

another option is to set the fields to null at the end of the method.

Is this what we want? I think the current state of flow analysis is 
preferable but I wanted to double check before going on.

Thanks,
Vicente