Local variable hides field

Reports local variables named identically to a field of a surrounding class. As a result of such naming, you may accidentally use the variable where the identically named field is intended.

A quick-fix is suggested to rename the variable.

Example:

  public class Foo {
    public Object foo;

    void bar() {
      Object o = new Object() {
        void baz() {
          Object foo; // Local variable 'foo' hides field in class 'Foo'
        }
      };
    }
  }

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.

LocalVariableHidesMemberVariable

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 | Visibility

You can configure the following options for this inspection:

Ignore non-accessible fields - ignore local variables named identically to superclass fields that are not visible (for example, because they are private).
Ignore local variables in a static context hiding non-static fields - for example when the local variable is inside a static method or inside a method which is inside a static inner class.

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Local variable hides field inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Ignore non-accessible fields: Default value:
Selected
Ignore local variables in a static context hiding non-static fields: Default value:
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 LocalVariableHidesMemberVariable

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