Variable has already been defined in my method, or has it?

Question

Consider the following method

public static boolean choosePlayer()
{
   String whatPlayer = input("Are you Player 1 or Player 2?");
   boolean player1;
   if (whatPlayer.equalsIgnoreCase("Player 1"))
   {
       boolean player1 = true;
   }    
   else
   {
       boolean player1 = false;
   }  
   return player1;
}   

I simply want this method to find out if the user is indeed player 1 and give me back player1 as true and false if they are not player 1. I get the compiler error

variable player1 is already defined in method choosePlayer()

If I remove the line of code boolean player1 , then it complains that it can't find the variable player1 .

I know I'm missing something simple but my brain is in mush-mode and it would be awesome if someone could point out my blunder. Thanks

Answer 1

The second declaration of player1 applies only inside the if statements, so you should keep only the first declaration.

public static boolean choosePlayer()
{
   String whatPlayer = input("Are you Player 1 or Player 2?");
   boolean player1;
   if (whatPlayer.equalsIgnoreCase("Player 1"))
   {
       player1 = true;
   }    
   else
   {
       player1 = false;
   }  
   return player1;
} 

Of course you can reduce this code to :

public static boolean choosePlayer()
{
   String whatPlayer = input("Are you Player 1 or Player 2?");
   return whatPlayer.equalsIgnoreCase("Player 1");
} 

or even

public static boolean choosePlayer()
{
   return input("Are you Player 1 or Player 2?").equalsIgnoreCase("Player 1");
} 

So you don't need that variable at all.