It is used later, on lines 533 and 537.

Do you mean I should just declare `result` for use inside the blocks and then separately after them?  I left it here just to keep the convention that `result` is typically declared once at the top of each method, assigned later, and then returned at the end.  (My comment on line 486 explains that I have to break that somewhat, but I opted to keep the declaration at the top.)