Exceptions: a return inside finally silently discards a propagating exception too

A return statement in finally does not just override a returned value, it also swallows any exception that was in flight from the try block, so the caller never learns the operation failed at all.

Code

static int risky() {
    try {
        throw new IllegalStateException("boom");
    } finally {
        return -1;
    }
}
System.out.println("Returned despite the throw: " + risky());

Output

Returned despite the throw: -1