Thread: unable to differentiate legal and illegal forward reference

I understand that the following is an example of valid reference in java. I also understand that at class creation, first i and j are initialized to 0. j is then re-initialized to 5, as a result of which i's value is 0 and j's is 5 inside main.

class J
{
 static int test()
 {
  return j;
 }
 static int i = test();
 static int j=5;
 
 public static void main(String[] args)
 {
  System.out.println(i);
  System.out.println(j);
 }
}

But why is the same not true for the following ? Why is it that i and j are not initialized to the default value of 0 in this case and gives an illegal forward reference?

class test
{
 static int i = j;
 static int j=5;
 
 public static void main(String[] args)
 {
  System.out.println(i);
  System.out.println(j);
 }
}

Why is it legal forward reference when using a method, and illegal when pretty much the same thing is done using a variable ?

Please advise.
Thanks.

Cross posted here.

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