So far I thought that **effectively final** and **final** are more or less equivalent and that the JLS would treat them similar if not identical in the actual behavior. Then I found this contrived scenario:

    final int a = 97;
    System.out.println(true ? a : &#39;c&#39;); // outputs a

    // versus

    int a = 97;
    System.out.println(true ? a : &#39;c&#39;); // outputs 97

Apparently, the JLS makes an important difference between the two here and I am not sure why.

I read other threads like

 - [Difference between final and effectively final][1]
 - [Effectively final variable vs final variable][2]
 - [What does a variable being “effectively final” mean?][3]

but they do not go into such detail. After all, on a broader level they appear to be pretty much equivalent. But digging deeper, they apparently differ.

What is causing this behavior, can anyone provide some JLS definitions that explain this?

----------

Edit: I found another related scenario:

    final String a = &quot;a&quot;;
    System.out.println(a + &quot;b&quot; == &quot;ab&quot;); // outputs true

    // versus

    String a = &quot;a&quot;;
    System.out.println(a + &quot;b&quot; == &quot;ab&quot;); // outputs false

So the string interning also behaves differently here (I dont want to use this snippet in real code, just curious about the different behavior).

  [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20938095/difference-between-final-and-effectively-final
  [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49683114/effectively-final-variable-vs-final-variable
  [3]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21473568/what-does-a-variable-being-effectively-final-mean

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Effectively final vs final - Different behavior