2

I know I'm throwing a pretty stupid question, but I promise I did try to search around the settings and around google and the webs and no luck, so I guess I should just ask.

I saw in quite a few open-source projects the following line:

if(DEBUG){
    //  do some logging
}

I perfectly understand what the line is doing, I just can't seem to repeat it. There's no declaration of boolean DEBUG; anywhere in the code, and I couldn't figure out a place on the project properties to define a system wide variable to be replaced on the compiling (into byte code). And as far as I know, if it's a reference to a class constant it was supposed to be Log.DEBUG or something similar.

Can anyone solve this mystery for me? thanks.

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5
  • Did you look in your imports to see if it was there? It could be a static import, which would explain why it is not declared in the source code. Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 13:57
  • I'm guessing they're all inheriting from some class that does have the constant defined, probably initializing it from some settings file... Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 13:57
  • 2
    If you're using Eclipse: Put the cursor on the word DEBUG and press F3. It should jump to the declaration of DEBUG. Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 13:59
  • @Jesper - Taught me something new. I normally use ctrl+click which does the same thing, but always good to learn another way =) Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 14:02
  • It was mostly on GitHub or google.code, but it's for Android so I'm 95% sure it was on Eclipse. I'm searching for some of those projects so I can post here. Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 14:16

2 Answers 2

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3

You really should look at the import section of the class.

It is probably a static import, like this :

A.java

public class A {
    public static boolean DEBUG = false;
}

B.java

import static A.DEBUG;

public class B {
  public void myMethod() {
    if (DEBUG) {
      // do something
    }
  }
}
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1 Comment

I know we're not supposed to do "thank you" comments. But awesome! That's the way to keep in a single location the debug flag value and use around the application. Then, with one line change you can compile a production version. Thanks.
0

You are in front of a public static field, look in import list and pick the original class or, use the inline help from Eclipse as said in comments

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4 Comments

I tested creating public static final boolean DEBUG in class1.java and in class2.java importing class1.java and use DEBUG, but unless I write class1.DEBUG it won't recognise. It's probably something on the project configuration. I know on the TexasInstrument IDE for their microcontrolers there's a section you can declare constants, but that's C for embed uC
@Budius You are right, then verify if your class extends anotehr class (or an abstract)
that's something I saw on GitHub or google.code and always bugged me. I remembered now, asked some ppl around work, no one knows. But at least now is registered and next time I see one I'll check out the project, dig into it and post the answer back in here.
@Budius I saw also it in an old version of an OODB src. I'm quite certain it is bound to inheritence. As I use log4j, I've forgotten this way of codding - As you, if I found something about this, I'll post here

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