Java: Iterative method returning an object

Question

Out of curiosity I came to write the following method:

public Object getObject() {
    return this.getObject();        
}

Why would Java allow me to write this? This method would never return any Object and would result in a StackOverflow Error.

Answer 1

It shouldn't stop you from doing it - this is just bottomless recursion, but it could've been a regular one. The compiler doesn't need to go and understand to code to guess if it's properly defined recursion or not.