Thread: Unreachable Statement in simple recursion code

i'm practicing recursion problems,
That's the question :

Given a string, compute recursively (no loops) the number of lowercase 'x' chars in the string.


countX("xxhixx") → 4
countX("xhixhix") → 3
countX("hi") → 0

that's my code :

 
public int countX(String str) {
  if (str.length() == 0);
    return 0;
  if (str.charAt(0) == 'x') // <---- unreachable statement here
 
      return 1 + countX(str.substring(1));
  return countX(str.substring(1));
}

the 4th line has unreachable statement error
i can't find a reason why is it unreachable because the first statement is wrapped in an if statement :/

i'll appreciate any help
thanks !

The return statement immediately before the unreachable statement will cause execution to exit the method.

Add the -Xlint option to the compiler command line to get an important warning about the if statement.

Please edit your post and wrap your code with code tags:

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