Numeric assignment should throw error

Question

I was making some tests with numeric conversions and casts in Java and I found this strange behaviour (for me)

class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
    //int y = 100000000000000; //does not compile
    int x = 100000 * 1000000000; //compile (why?)
    System.out.println(x); //x is 276447232
   }
}

Basically x and y should be the same number: why does it compile?

Answer 1

Integer overflow goes undetected in Java, that's why the multiplication works fine. However, the literal you were stating was too large and thus is a compiler error.

I guess while the vast majority of Java compilers will precompute that value at compilation time that is not required by the JLS. Thus it cannot be an error, since then different compilers may compile a piece of code or yield errors – something that isn't so nice.

The Sun Java compiler actually performs the calculation as the disassembly shows:

Compiled from "x.java"
class x extends java.lang.Object{
x();
  Code:
   0:   aload_0
   1:   invokespecial   #1; //Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
   4:   return

public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
  Code:
   0:   ldc     #2; //int 276447232
   2:   istore_1
   3:   getstatic       #3; //Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
   6:   iload_1
   7:   invokevirtual   #4; //Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(I)V
   10:  return

The important thing to note here is that for all intents and purposes the result must be the same as if it were computed during runtime. Therefore no compiler error can occur here.