Initializing public static final variables in constructor

Question

I'm trying to make a Version class for my app that will read version numbers from the manifest at load time and then just reference for example Version.MAJOR and such wherever I need it elsewhere. However, I'm having issues doing so. Here's my current code:

 public class Version {

    public static final int APPCODE;
    public static final int MAJOR;
    public static final int MINOR;
    public static final char RELEASE;
    public static final int BUILD;

    static {

        try {
            Class clazz = Version.class;
            String className = clazz.getSimpleName() + ".class";
            String classPath = clazz.getResource(className).toString();
            if (classPath.startsWith("jar")) {
                String manifestPath = classPath.substring(0, classPath.lastIndexOf("!") + 1) + "/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF";
                Manifest manifest = new Manifest(new URL(manifestPath).openStream());
                Attributes attr = manifest.getMainAttributes();
                APPCODE = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("APPCODE"));
                MAJOR = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("MAJOR"));
                MINOR = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("MINOR"));
                RELEASE = attr.getValue("RELEASE").charAt(0);
                BUILD = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("BUILD"));
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.exit(9001);
        }
    }
}

It won't compile, because the static final variables might not be initialized (for example if the wrong manifest is loaded or there's an exception loading it) and I can't figure out what the correct procedure to do this is.

Reading this question has given me some insight to not use public static final. Should I rather be using public static with getter methods?

Answer 1

If you make sure that you always assign to the final fields exactly once, the compiler will be happy:

public class Version {

    public static final int APPCODE;
    public static final int MAJOR;
    public static final int MINOR;
    public static final char RELEASE;
    public static final int BUILD;

    static {
        int appcode = 0;
        int major = 0;
        int minor = 0;
        char release = 0;
        int build = 0;
        try {
            Class clazz = Version.class;
            String className = clazz.getSimpleName() + ".class";
            String classPath = clazz.getResource(className).toString();
            if (classPath.startsWith("jar")) {
                String manifestPath = classPath.substring(0,
                        classPath.lastIndexOf("!") + 1)
                        + "/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF";
                Manifest manifest = new Manifest(
                        new URL(manifestPath).openStream());
                Attributes attr = manifest.getMainAttributes();
                appcode = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("APPCODE"));
                major = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("MAJOR"));
                minor = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("MINOR"));
                release = attr.getValue("RELEASE").charAt(0);
                build = Integer.parseInt(attr.getValue("BUILD"));
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.exit(9001);
        }
        APPCODE = appcode;
        MAJOR = major;
        MINOR = minor;
        RELEASE = release;
        BUILD = build;
    }
}

Answer 2

I would:

• remove the final modifiers
• reduce the visibility from public to private.
• provide (static) getters for the needed fields