When should one use final for method parameters and local variables?

I've found a couple of references (for example) that suggest using final as much as possible and I'm wondering how important that is. This is mainly in the the context of method parameters and local variables, not final methods or classes. For constants, it makes obvious sense.

On one hand, the compiler can make some optimizations and it makes the programmer's intent clearer. On the other hand, it adds verbosity and the optimizations may be trivial.

Is it something I should make an effort to remember?

Solution 1:

Obsess over:

• Final fields - Marking fields as final forces them to be set by end of construction, making that field reference immutable. This allows safe publication of fields and can avoid the need for synchronization on later reads. (Note that for an object reference, only the field reference is immutable - things that object reference refers to can still change and that affects the immutability.)
• Final static fields - Although I use enums now for many of the cases where I used to use static final fields.

Consider but use judiciously:

• Final classes - Framework/API design is the only case where I consider it.
• Final methods - Basically same as final classes. If you're using template method patterns like crazy and marking stuff final, you're probably relying too much on inheritance and not enough on delegation.

Ignore unless feeling anal:

• Method parameters and local variables - I RARELY do this largely because I'm lazy and I find it clutters the code. I will fully admit that marking parameters and local variables that I'm not going to modify is "righter". I wish it was the default. But it isn't and I find the code more difficult to understand with finals all over. If I'm in someone else's code, I'm not going to pull them out but if I'm writing new code I won't put them in. One exception is the case where you have to mark something final so you can access it from within an anonymous inner class.

• Edit: note that one use case where final local variables are actually very useful as mentioned by @adam-gent is when value gets assigned to the var in the if/else branches.

Solution 2:

Is it something I should make an effort to remember to do?

No, if you are using Eclipse, because you can configure a Save Action to automatically add these final modifiers for you. Then you get the benefits for less effort.

Solution 3:

I use final all the time to make Java more expression based. See Java's conditions (if,else,switch) are not expression based which I have always hated especially if your used to functional programming (ie ML, Scala or Lisp).

Thus you should try to always (IMHO) use final variables when using conditions.

Let me give you an example:

    final String name;
    switch(pluginType) {
        case CANDIDATE_EXPORT:
            name = "Candidate Stuff";
            break;
        case JOB_POSTING_IMPORT:
            name = "Blah";
            break;
        default:
            throw new IllegalStateException();
    }

Now If add another case statement and do not set name the compiler will fail. The compiler will also fail if you do not break on every case (that you set the variable). This allows you to make Java very similar to Lisp's let expressions and makes it so your code is not massively indented (because of lexical scoping variables).

And as @Recurse noted (but apparently -1 me) you can do the preceding with out making String name final to get the compiler error (which I never said you couldn't) but you could easily make the compiler error go away setting name after the switch statement which throws away the expression semantics or worse forgetting to break which you cannot cause an error (despite what @Recurse says) without using final:

    String name;
    switch(pluginType) {
        case CANDIDATE_EXPORT:
            name = "Candidate Stuff";
            //break; whoops forgot break.. 
            //this will cause a compile error for final ;P @Recurse
        case JOB_POSTING_IMPORT:
            name = "Blah";
            break;
    }
    // code, code, code
    // Below is not possible with final
    name = "Whoops bug";

Because of the bug setting name (besides forgetting to break which also another bug) I can now accidentally do this:

    String name;
    switch(pluginType) {
        case CANDIDATE_EXPORT:
            name = "Candidate Stuff";
            break;
        //should have handled all the cases for pluginType
    }
    // code, code, code
    // Below is not possible with final
    name = "Whoops bug";

The final variable forces a single evaluation of what name should be. Similar to how a function that has a return value must always return a value (ignoring exceptions) the name switch block will have to resolve name and thus bound to that switch block which makes refactoring chunks of code easier (ie Eclipe refactor: extract method).

The above in OCaml:

type plugin = CandidateExport | JobPostingImport

let p = CandidateExport

let name = match p with
    | CandidateExport -> "Candidate Stuff"
    | JobPostingImport -> "Blah" ;;

The match ... with ... evaluates like a function ie expression. Notice how it looks like our switch statement.

Here is an example in Scheme (Racket or Chicken):

(define name 
    (match b
      ['CandidateExport "Candidate Stuff"]
      ['JobPostingImport "Blah"]))