Static Initialization Blocks

Question

As far as I understood the "static initialization block" is used to set values of static field if it cannot be done in one line.

But I do not understand why we need a special block for that. For example we declare a field as static (without a value assignment). And then write several lines of the code which generate and assign a value to the above declared static field.

Why do we need this lines in a special block like: static {...}?

Answer 1

If your static variables need to be set at runtime then a static {...} block is very helpful.

For example, if you need to set the static member to a value which is stored in a config file or database.

Also useful when you want to add values to a static Map member as you can't add these values in the initial member declaration.

Answer 2

If they weren't in a static initialization block, where would they be? How would you declare a variable which was only meant to be local for the purposes of initialization, and distinguish it from a field? For example, how would you want to write:

public class Foo {
    private static final int widgets;

    static {
        int first = Widgets.getFirstCount();
        int second = Widgets.getSecondCount();
        // Imagine more complex logic here which really used first/second
        widgets = first + second;
    }
}

If first and second weren't in a block, they'd look like fields. If they were in a block without static in front of it, that would count as an instance initialization block instead of a static initialization block, so it would be executed once per constructed instance rather than once in total.

Now in this particular case, you could use a static method instead:

public class Foo {
    private static final int widgets = getWidgets();

    static int getWidgets() {
        int first = Widgets.getFirstCount();
        int second = Widgets.getSecondCount();
        // Imagine more complex logic here which really used first/second
        return first + second;
    }
}

... but that doesn't work when there are multiple variables you wish to assign within the same block, or none (e.g. if you just want to log something - or maybe initialize a native library).

Answer 3

It is a common misconception to think that a static block has only access to static fields. For this I would like to show below piece of code that I quite often use in real-life projects (copied partially from another answer in a slightly different context):

public enum Language { 
  ENGLISH("eng", "en", "en_GB", "en_US"),   
  GERMAN("de", "ge"),   
  CROATIAN("hr", "cro"),   
  RUSSIAN("ru"),
  BELGIAN("be",";-)");

  static final private Map<String,Language> ALIAS_MAP = new HashMap<String,Language>(); 
  static { 
    for (Language l:Language.values()) { 
      // ignoring the case by normalizing to uppercase
      ALIAS_MAP.put(l.name().toUpperCase(),l); 
      for (String alias:l.aliases) ALIAS_MAP.put(alias.toUpperCase(),l); 
    } 
  } 

  static public boolean has(String value) { 
    // ignoring the case by normalizing to uppercase
    return ALIAS_MAP.containsKey(value.toUpper()); 
  } 

  static public Language fromString(String value) { 
    if (value == null) throw new NullPointerException("alias null"); 
    Language l = ALIAS_MAP.get(value); 
    if (l == null) throw new IllegalArgumentException("Not an alias: "+value); 
    return l; 
  } 

  private List<String> aliases; 
  private Language(String... aliases) { 
    this.aliases = Arrays.asList(aliases); 
  } 
} 

Here the initializer is used to maintain an index (ALIAS_MAP), to map a set of aliases back to the original enum type. It is intended as an extension to the built-in valueOf method provided by the Enum itself.

As you can see, the static initializer accesses even the private field aliases. It is important to understand that the static block already has access to the Enum value instances (e.g. ENGLISH). This is because the order of initialization and execution in the case of Enum types, just as if the static private fields have been initialized with instances before the static blocks have been called:

1. The Enum constants which are implicit static fields. This requires the Enum constructor and instance blocks, and instance initialization to occur first as well.
2. static block and initialization of static fields in the order of occurrence.

This out-of-order initialization (constructor before static block) is important to note. It also happens when we initialize static fields with the instances similarly to a Singleton (simplifications made):

public class Foo {
  static { System.out.println("Static Block 1"); }
  public static final Foo FOO = new Foo();
  static { System.out.println("Static Block 2"); }
  public Foo() { System.out.println("Constructor"); }
  static public void main(String p[]) {
    System.out.println("In Main");
    new Foo();
  }
}

What we see is the following output:

Static Block 1
Constructor
Static Block 2
In Main
Constructor

Clear is that the static initialization actually can happen before the constructor, and even after:

Simply accessing Foo in the main method, causes the class to be loaded and the static initialization to start. But as part of the Static initialization we again call the constructors for the static fields, after which it resumes static initialization, and completes the constructor called from within the main method. Rather complex situation for which I hope that in normal coding we would not have to deal with.

For more info on this see the book "Effective Java".

Answer 4

I would say static block is just syntactic sugar. There is nothing you could do with static block and not with anything else.

To re-use some examples posted here.

This piece of code could be re-written without using static initialiser.

Method #1: With static

private static final HashMap<String, String> MAP;
static {
    MAP.put("banana", "honey");
    MAP.put("peanut butter", "jelly");
    MAP.put("rice", "beans");
  }

Method #2: Without static

private static final HashMap<String, String> MAP = getMap();
private static HashMap<String, String> getMap()
{
    HashMap<String, String> ret = new HashMap<>();
    ret.put("banana", "honey");
    ret.put("peanut butter", "jelly");
    ret.put("rice", "beans");
    return ret;
}

Answer 5

You can execute bits of code once for a class before an object is constructed in the static blocks.

E.g.

class A {
  static int var1 = 6;
  static int var2 = 9;
  static int var3;
  static long var4;

  static Date date1;
  static Date date2;

  static {
    date1 = new Date();

    for(int cnt = 0; cnt < var2; cnt++){
      var3 += var1;
    }

    System.out.println("End first static init: " + new Date());
  }
}

Answer 6

The non-static block:

{
    // Do Something...
}

Gets called every time an instance of the class is constructed. The static block only gets called once, when the class itself is initialized, no matter how many objects of that type you create.

Example:

public class Test {

    static{
        System.out.println("Static");
    }

    {
        System.out.println("Non-static block");
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Test t = new Test();
        Test t2 = new Test();
    }
}

This prints:

Static
Non-static block
Non-static block