HELP: initializing objects

Question

Is it possible to initialize an object within an if statement and then use a method on it somewhere later on ?
I need to have it so that if the user chooses an option, the object will be initialized, and then if the user chooses another option it can be edited (provided that it's already been created.) However, I can't seem to get it to work. I'm VERY new to Java, so I've almost no idea what I'm doing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Your problem is probably that you are declaring your variable in your if statement, in which case it falls out of scope when you exit that condition. Example
if (x>0) {
boolean test = true;
if (test)...is not legal. What you should do is this
boolean test = false;
if (x>0) {
test = true;
}