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OPTIONAL
SCHOOL OF JAVA
MARCH 2019
 AGENDA
 THE WHY
 WORKING WITH OPTIONAL
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 WHEN TO NOT USE OPTIONAL

 GOLDEN RULES

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 WHY?

• No real way of specifying that a method might not

return anything
• Make explicit checks for protecting
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against
NullPointerException
• Entangled code

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 OPTIONAL<T>

PROPERTIES
 Enables designing more-comprehensible APIs so that by just
reading the signature of a method, you can tell whether you can
expect an optional value.
 Two states:
• Absent 4
• Present
 Immutable
 Wrapper
OPTIONAL VS NULL
 When trying to dereference a null will invariably cause a
NullPointerException
 Optional.empty() is a valid, workable object and it can be invoked in
various ways
 Null forces you to check it explicitly while Optional forces you to
actively unwrap it
 Optional is a separate object (16 bytes!)
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 WORKING WITH OPTIONAL

 Empty Optional
 Optional.empty();

 Optional from a non-null value

 Optional.of(object);
 Throws NPE if object is null

 Optional from a nullable value

 Optional.ofNullable(nullableObject);

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 WHEN NOT TO USE OPTIONAL

 in the domain model layer (not Serializable)

 in DTOs (same reason)
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 in input parameters of methods
 in constructor parameters

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 GOLDEN RULES

1. Never, ever, use null for an Optional variable or return value

2. Never use Optional.get() unless you can prove that the optional
is present
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3. Use Optional.get() and Optional.isPresent() as the last resort
4. Don’t use Optional for the sake of it
5. Don’t use Optional in fields, parameters or collections