What are braces in Java for?

Braces, also known as curly braces, use { and } to delimit compound statements. Also, Java uses them for surrounding the bodies of loops, methods and classes.

For example

• Instance initializer, it is a block of code that will execute each time an instance of the class is created.

  class Program {
    {
      System.out.println("Instance Intializer");
    }
  
    public static void main(String[] args) {
    }
  }
  

• Static initializer, it is a block of code that will execute only one time when the class is first loaded.

  class Program {
    static {
      System.out.println("Instance Intializer");
    }
  
    public static void main(String[] args) {
    }
  
  }
  

• A compound statement, it is just a block of code that will execute when the method is invoked.

  class Program {
  
    public static void main(String[] args) {
  
      {
        ....
        System.out.println("Inside method");
        ....
      }
  
    }
  
  }
  

• Local variables are declared within code blocks. The scope of a local variable starts at the variable declaration and ends at the closing curly brace of the containing block.