Why isn't the scope of a switch statement in Java limited?

Question

Why, in Java, is a variable's scope confined to a switch block as opposed to a case block. For example,

// Scope limited to a switch block
switch (number) {
case 1:
    String result = "...";
    break;
case 2:
    result = "...";
    break;

In the above example, result needs only to be declared once. If you declare it twice then you receive a Duplicate local variable message.

My question is: how does the program know you've declared result if number = 2? (It won't fall into case 1 and won't declare the variable... or will it?)

EDIT:

I might be confusing everyone. I understand how I can limit the scope of a variable but my question is: how does Java know that result has been declared if it doesn't fall into the case?

Answer 1

EDIT: Java uses lexical scoping (also called static scoping), so the scope of the variables are determined during compile time, and have nothing to do with the actual evaluation.

Java is block scoped, so it's scope will respect the {} in the example above.

See JLS 6.3:

The scope of a local variable declaration in a block (§14.4) is the rest of the block in which the declaration appears, starting with its own initializer and including any further declarators to the right in the local variable declaration statement.