Constant on wrong side of comparison

Reports comparison operations where the constant value is on the wrong side.

Some coding conventions specify that constants should be on a specific side of a comparison, either left or right.

Example:

  boolean compare(int x) {
    return 1 > x; // Constant '1' on the left side of the comparison
  }

After the quick-fix is applied:

  boolean compare(int x) {
    return x < 1;
  }

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

ConstantOnWrongSideOfComparison

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Java | Code style issues

Use the inspection settings to choose the side of constants in comparisons and whether to warn if null literals are on the wrong side.

New in 2019.2

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Constant on wrong side of comparison inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Constant should be on the|side of a comparison

Default value:

left

Other available settings:

right

Ignore 'null' on the wrong side

Default value:

Not selected

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection ConstantOnWrongSideOfComparison

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2, Qodana for JVM 2025.2,

Last modified: 18 September 2025