A common interview question for Java developers is to write some code inside a try / catch / finally statement so that the finally statement is not reached. At first glance, this is not possible.

A finally statement in Java is used in conjunction with a try/catch statement. The finally statement contains a block of code that is guaranteed to be executed, regardless of whether an exception is thrown or caught in the try block.

The finally statement is typically used to perform clean-up operations, such as releasing resources that were acquired in the try block, or logging any relevant information about the state of the program when an exception occurs.

Here is a simple example of a try/catch/finally statement in Java:

try {
  // code that may throw an exception
} catch (Exception e) {
  // code to handle the exception
} finally {
  // code that will always be executed, regardless of whether an exception is thrown
}

In this example, the code in the try block may throw an exception. If an exception is thrown, it will be caught by the catch block and handled appropriately. Regardless of whether an exception is thrown or caught, the code in the finally block will always be executed.

It's important to note that if the finally block itself throws an exception, this exception will overwrite the exception that was thrown in the try block, making it more difficult to determine the root cause of the problem.

However, here is one way to avoid going through the finally statement:

try {
	System.exit(1);
} catch (Exception e) {
	System.out.println("Nothing is caught here.");
} finally {
	System.out.println("Finally block is never executed.");
}

This code creates a simple Java program that demonstrates how a finally block is not executed if the program exits using System.exit(1) before the finally block is reached.

Here's what happens when the code is executed:

  1. The main method is called, starting the program.

  2. The try block contains a single line of code, System.exit(1), which immediately terminates the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the program.

  3. Since the System.exit(1) call causes the JVM to exit, the rest of the try/catch/finally block is not executed, including the finally block.

  4. As a result, the output of the program is nothing, as the message "Finally block is never executed." is never printed.

It's worth noting that when System.exit(1) is called, it terminates the entire JVM, including all threads and all other non-daemon threads. This means that no other code can be executed after System.exit(1), including any code in a finally block.