One of my else if branches never runs

It compiled and it is still wrong

One of my else if branches never runs

This page is part of Intro to Java with Greenfoot. It assumes you have reached lesson 2.5. Opening it is not counted against you and is not tracked as progress.

What it actually means

A condition earlier in the chain is catching everything that branch was meant to catch.

The usual causes

Ranked by how often each one turns out to be the answer. Work down the list.

  1. A wide condition placed before a narrow one, so the narrow one is unreachable.
  2. Overlapping ranges, where the first match wins and the rest never get tested.
  3. Expecting every condition to be checked. The chain stops at the first true one.

How to fix it

Write the conditions out in order and ask, for each one, whether anything above it would already have caught that value. Reorder so the narrowest condition comes first and the chain widens downward.

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