Bug 188388

Description Michael Rennie 2007-05-22 13:20:25 EDT

Using the force return function can cause a confusing error message to be displayed to the user if they try to force return using a code snippet that returns a value other than what is expected. For example consider the following code:
public class Test {
public List<String> doSomething3() {
 List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
 list.add("original");
 return list; //breakpoint
}

public static void main (String[] args) {
 Test test = new Test();
 test.doSomething3();
}
}

if we try to force return from the breakpoint using the following code snippet:

List<String> list2 = new ArrayList<String>();
list2.add("new");

we get an error message about the type I specified as a return type is not compatible witrh the method's return type. What makes this confusing is that I have not specified a return type (which in this case is the return value of the add method for the list), and the error message gives me no context of what I am trying to return and what it is looking for.

It would also be nice if there was somwe indication of what to do to resolve the problem: in this case adding a 'return list2;' fixes it and forces return successfully.