I have this problem where I initialize a variable outside of a forloop. And then inside of the forloop try to update the value of this variable but everytime I "local variable not used". I tried a simple example (below) and the problem is still there. Ret is highlighted in my compiler and the error message is displayed. I don't understand why I can't access variables inside my loops anymore. Is this possibly due to me missing a bracket somewhere in my methods somewhere else in the class?

```
public static String test(String input) {
        String ret = "";
        for(int i=0;i<5; i++) {
            ret += "m";
        }
        return "";

    }

```

I was wondering if someone could help me with this. I would really appreciate it. Thanks!