“Missing return statement” within if / for / while

Question

I have a question regarding return statements used within if() while() or for() statements. As you can see in the following method, it

Answer 1

That is illegal syntax. It is not an optional thing for you to return a variable. You MUST return a variable of the type you specify in your method.

public String myMethod()
{
    if(condition)
    {
       return x;
    }
}

You are effectively saying, I promise any class can use this method(public) and I promise it will always return a String(String).

Then you are saying IF my condition is true I will return x. Well that is too bad, there is no IF in your promise. You promised that myMethod will ALWAYS return a String. Even if your condition is ALWAYS true the compiler has to assume that there is a possibility of it being false. Therefore you always need to put a return at the end of your non-void method outside of any conditions JUST IN CASE all of your conditions fail.

public String myMethod()
{
    if(condition)
    {
       return x;
    }
  return ""; //or whatever the default behavior will be if all of your conditions fail to return.
}