Java Cookbook

Conditional Debugging without #ifdef

Problem

You want conditional compilation and Java doesn’t seem to provide it.

Solution

Use constants or command-line arguments, depending upon the goal.

Discussion

Some older languages such as C, PL/I, and C++ provide a feature known as conditional compilation. Conditional compilation means that parts of the program can be included or excluded at compile time based upon some condition. One thing it’s often used for is to include or exclude debugging print statements. When the program appears to be working, the developer is struck by a fit of hubris and removes all the error checking :-). A more common rationale is that the developer wants to make the finished program smaller -- a worthy goal -- or run faster by removing conditional statements.

Although Java lacks any explicit conditional compilation, there is a kind of conditional compilation implicit in the language. All Java compilers must do flow analysis to ensure that all paths to a local variable’s usage pass through a statement that assigns it a value first, that all returns from a function pass out via someplace that provides a return value, and so on. Imagine what the compiler will do when it finds an if statement whose value is known to be false at compile time. Why should it even generate code for the condition? True, you say, but how can the results of an if statement be known at compile time? Simple: through final boolean variables. Further, if the value of the if condition ...