[java] LocalVariableCouldBeFinal on 'size' variable in for loop

[RocketRider]

Affects PMD Version: 7.0.0

Rule: LocalVariableCouldBeFinal

Description:
The following line causes a LocalVariableCouldBeFinal warning, but this can't be fixed. As "size" can't be declared final.

for (int i = 0, size = loaders.size(); i < size; ++i) {

[jsotuyod]

@RocketRider thanks for the report, and sorry for the delay. I'm catching up on some old PMD emails… why can't you move the declaration outside the for and declare it final?

[KristofSzabados]

I agree with the proposal.

Technically one could extract the declaration outside the for loop, but
1)
It gets pretty ugly really soon.

final int size_1 = loader.size();
for (.....

final int size_2 = other_list.size();
for (....

final int size_3 = outler_list.size();
final int size_4 = inner_list.size();
for (..) {
for (...)
{...
}}

extracting the declaration outside of the for loop, increases the scope of the declaration ... inviting missuse (and as seen above name clashes).

[adangel]

Do you need a separate size variable at all? What about this?

for (int i = 0; i < loaders.size(); ++i) {

[RocketRider]

The idea is to keep the scope of the size variable as small as possible. It does not need to be a separate variable but it is nice if the variable is not visible outside of the loop.

The Issue with the last examle is, that it will call "size()" on every iteration.

[adangel]

The issue is still reproducible under PMD 7.0.0.