Variable might not have been initialized error

Question

When i try to compile this:

public static Rand searchCount (int[] x) 
{
    int a ; 
    int b ; 

    ...   

    for (int l= 0; l

        

Answer 1

You declared them, but you didn't initialize them. Initializing them is setting them equal to a value:

int a;        // This is a declaration
a = 0;        // This is an initialization
int b = 1;    // This is a declaration and initialization

You get the error because you haven't initialized the variables, but you increment them (e.g., a++) in the for loop.

Java primitives have default values but as one user commented below

Their default value is zero when declared as class members. Local variables don't have default values