== Why is this an issue? Having too many return statements in a method increases the method's essential complexity because the flow of execution is broken each time a return statement is encountered. This makes it harder to read and understand the logic of the method. === Noncompliant code example With the default threshold of 3: [source,java] ---- public boolean myMethod() { // Noncompliant; there are 4 return statements if (condition1) { return true; } else { if (condition2) { return false; } else { return true; } } return false; } ---- ifdef::env-github,rspecator-view[] ''' == Implementation Specification (visible only on this page) include::../message.adoc[] include::parameters.adoc[] include::../highlighting.adoc[] ''' == Comments And Links (visible only on this page) include::../comments-and-links.adoc[] endif::env-github,rspecator-view[]