Order of execution of static { } statements question

Question

Hi,
I have a question about the order of execution of static statements. Let's imagine the following Class B inheriting of Class A:
public class A {
    static {  // My static code for A };
public class B extends A {
    static { // My static code for B; };
}I know that static statements are executed when classes are loaded, but does Java guarantee an order of execution of static statements between inherited classed (like for constructors) or is it 'random' in that it depends which class is loaded first?
Thanks,
J.

Answer 1

Jrm,
My advise with this and all such questions is "Suck it and see"...
Have compiler, will travail ;-)
Cheers. Keith.
PS:
package forums;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class InitBlocksTesterpator
  private List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>() {
      add("This hack uses an anonymous inner-class to populate the list.");
      add("It causes serialization problems");
C:\\Java\\home\\src\\forums\\InitBlocksTesterpator.java:8: warning: [serial] serializable class <anonymous forums.InitBlocksTesterpator$1> has no definition of serialVersionUID
  private List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>() {
                                                      ^
1 warning
  static {
    System.out.println("this is a static initialiser block above the main method.");
    System.out.println("this is a instance initialiser block above the main method.");
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // static { System.out.println("this is a static initialiser block inside the main method."); } // won't compile
    { // this is hardly ever used. just use a method FFS!
      int n = 0; // n is lexically scoped... i.e. it only exists in this code block
      System.out.println("this is a code block inside the main method.");
    new InitBlocksTesterpator().moreBeer();
    System.out.println("this is a instance initialiser block below the main method.");
  static {
    System.out.println("this is a static initialiser block below the main method.");
  public void moreBeer() {
      System.out.println("this is a code block in the moreBeer instance method.");
    // static { System.out.println("this is a static initialiser block in an instance method"); } // won't compile
    System.out.println(list);
}... just to save you some time ...