Unused assignment

Reports assignment values that are not used after assignment. If the assignment value is unused, it's better to remove the assignment to shorten the code and avoid redundant allocations.

The following cases are reported:

variables that are never read after assignment
variables that are always overwritten with a new value before being read
variable initializers that are redundant (for one of the two reasons above)

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.

UnusedAssignment

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 | Probable bugs

Configure the inspection:

Use the Report redundant initializers option to report redundant initializers:

  int getI() {
    int i = 0; // redundant initialization
    i = 2;
    return i;
  }

Use the Report prefix expressions that can be replaced with binary expressions option to report cases where an ++i expression may be replaced with i + 1:

  int preInc(int value) {
    int res = value;
    return ++res;
  }

Use the Report postfix expressions where the changed value is not used option to report i++ cases where the value of i is not used later:

  int postInc(int value) {
    int res = value;
    return res++;
  }

Use the Report pattern variables whose values are never used option to report cases where the value of a pattern variable is overwritten before it is read:

  if (object instanceof String s) {
      s = "hello";
      System.out.println(s);
  }

Use the Report iteration parameters whose values are never used option to report cases where the value of an iteration parameter of an enhanced for statements is overwritten before it is read:

  for (String arg : args) {
      arg = "test";
      System.out.println(arg);
  }

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Unused assignment inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Report redundant initializers: Default value:
Selected
Report prefix expressions that can be replaced with a binary expression: Default value:
Not selected
Report postfix expressions where the changed value is not used: Default value:
Selected
Report pattern variables whose values are never used: Default value:
Selected
Report iteration parameters whose values are never used: 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 UnusedAssignment

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