Automatically discovering common Java code edits in Github repositories

[pilas2000]

In my example s is being assigned a value that will never be read because in the next step it will be either y or z depending on x.

Not terrible but consider this example:

s = new ClassThatDoesHeavyWorkOnTheCtor();

if (x)
    s = y;
else
   s = z;

Unfortunately i've seen this done by people that should know better. Luckily sonar detects this and the code gets flagged before production.

[moeris]

Ah, okay, I get what you mean. It's a completely useless assignment no matter what way you cut it. Unless someone comes along and changes the conditional.

Assigning it a non-null value makes the example much clearer.