[CODE]
 String message = "", send = "", quit = "", errorMsg = "", cookie =
"";
 boolean hasSubmittedMessage;
 HTMLRetriever retriever;

 // SEND MESSAGE TO SERVLET
 if (hasSubmittedMessage && send.length() > 0) {
  try {      //  USING NEW VERSION OF URLEncoder.encode() THAT REQUIRES
try{} BLOCK DUE TO NEW 2ND PARAMETER OF ENC-TYPE
   retriever = new HTMLRetriever(ChatGlobals.SERVLET_SELF +
"/ppowell.ChatServlet?message=" +
                                 URLEncoder.encode(message, "UTF-8") +
"&nickname=" +
                                 URLEncoder.encode(cookie, "UTF-8")
                                );                                    // SEND MESSAGE
  } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException uee) {
   errorMsg = "Error involving message submittal: " + uee.toString();
  } catch (Exception e) {
   errorMsg += "Unknown error: " + e.toString();
  }
 } else if (hasSubmittedMessage && quit.length() > 0) {
  try {    //  USING NEW VERSION OF URLEncoder.encode() THAT REQUIRES
try{} BLOCK DUE TO NEW 2ND PARAMETER OF ENC-TYPE
   retriever = new HTMLRetriever(ChatGlobals.SERVLET_SELF +
"/ppowell.ChatServlet?message=" +
                                 URLEncoder.encode("/q", "UTF-8") +
"&nickname=" +
                                 URLEncoder.encode(cookie, "UTF-8")
                                );                                    // SEND "QUIT" COMMAND
  } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException uee) {
   errorMsg += "Error involving message submittal: " + uee.toString();
  } catch (Exception e) {
   errorMsg += "Unknown error: " + e.toString();
  }
 }

 try {
  if (retriever.getHTML() != null && quit.length() > 0)
   out.println("<script type=\"text/javascript\">\n<!--
self.parent.close();\n//-->\n</script>\n");
 } catch (Exception e) {} // DO NOTHING

// STUFF

[/CODE]

Produces this error:

[ERROR]
/~ppowell/includes/chat_submit_message.jsp:63: variable retriever might
not have been initialized
  if (retriever.getHTML() != null && quit.length() > 0)
[/ERROR]

I can't figure out why since I'm capturing all errors because
"retriever" might not be initialized, which is the case if
hasSubmittedMessage = false.  You see, if the user hasn't yet submitted
a message, nothing can be sent to the servlet, thus, the HTMLRetriever
variable "retriever" will not be initialized into a class object
because it can't unless it receives a value, which it can only do so
upon the right conditions, otherwise, no value can be passed into
"retriever".

Anyone know what I can do about this? I'm sorry but once again in PHP
this is not a problem, and I'm sorry but I have no choice but to
"translate" PHP scripts into JSP due to client dropping PHP support.

Thanx
Phil