How final is final?

One interesting tidbit from Spiff development. How final is

final int x = 1

? Answer: Not very, if you're using reflection. Field.setAccessible(true) will soon get you round any awkward encapsulation issues.

So, newly armed with that knowledge, what's printed out here?

public class HowFinal {
    private final int x = 1;
    
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        HowFinal howFinal = new HowFinal();
        Field f = howFinal.getClass().getDeclaredField("x");
        f.setAccessible(true);
        f.set(howFinal,2);
        System.out.println(howFinal.getX());
        System.out.println(f.get(howFinal));
    }

    public int getX() {
        return x;
    }
}

The answer, unexpectedly, is

1
2

Er, so x was final after all? Sort of. The compiler inlines constants at compile time, so as far as the runtime JVM is concerned, getX() contains the code return 1;. Querying the field via reflection shows it's true value of 2.

Is there any question whose answer doesn't start with "it depends"?