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kotlinlang

test(1) results in “12.0”
test(2) results in “13.0"

Ran in Scratch file of IntelliJ, hence no `println`

What am I missing? I would have expected the val to require an initial value, and complain if it’s assigned, but it appears not.

Compiler can do control flow analysis.
In your example `local` variable is always assigned before it is used and never reassigned, so it is fine by compiler.

You can look at it like:
```val local =
    if (a == 1)
        "12.0".toBigDecimal()
    else
        "13.0".toBigDecimal()
return local```

Interesting. So even though there’s more code, it still does that level of analysis. Nice!

Just hadn’t thought of using it before, and it’s definitely a rare scenario where it makes sense over using `if` as an expression, but nice to know it’s there.