Finding Null or Empty String Checks in Java
#java#java8#functions#regex
Gunnar Gissel

Gunnar Gissel @monknomo

About: Saving fish by writing code! Applications developer in fisheries, specializing in webapps and moving 'enterprise-y' legacy systems to modern agile systems - Email or tweet me if you want to talk!

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Finding Null or Empty String Checks in Java

Publish Date: May 28 '17
8 2

I have a lot of code like this:

if( null == myString || "".equals(myString))
    doAThing();
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The codes fine, really. Very idiomatic, gets the job done.

Lately, I've been on a predicate kick. I like replacing my conditionals with predicates that describe the intent of the conditional statement. I can also replace a lot of my boilerplate code with a couple common predicates. This is one I use a lot:

 public static final Predicate<String> NULL_OR_EMPTY = (in) -> null==in || "".equals(in);
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It's true; if the code base had been crafted with Optionals or other null-avoidance techniques, that I could mostly ignore this check. My code base has history and weight and external interfaces, so there are plenty of this check and others like it.

I have been using this regex to find likely places that I can apply my predicate:

  /\(\s*null\s*==\s*(\S*)\s*\|\|\s*""\.equals\(\s*\1\s*\)\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*)\s*==\s*null\s*\|\|\s*""\.equals\(\s*\2\s*\)\s*\)|\(\s*null\s*==\s*(\S*)\s*\|\|\s*\3\.equals\(\s*""\s*\)\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*)\s*==\s*null\s*\|\|\s*\4\.equals\(\s*""\s*\)\s*\)|\(\s*""\.equals\(\s*(\S*)\s*\)\s*\|\|\s*null\s*==\s*\5\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*)\.equals\(\s*""\s*\)\s*\|\|\s*null\s*==\s*\6\s*\)|\(\s*""\.equals\(\s*(\S*)\s*\)\s*\|\|\s\7\s*==\s*null\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*).equals\(\s*""\s*\)\s*\|\|\s*\8\s*==\s*null\s*\)|\(\s*null\s*==\s*(\S*)\s*\|\|\s*""\s*==\s*\9\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*)\s*==\s*null\s*\|\|\s*""\s*==\s*\10\s*\)|\(\s*null\s*==\s*(\S*)\s*\|\|\s*\11\s*==\s*""\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*)\s*==\s*null\s*\|\|\s*\12\s*==\s*""\s*\)|\(\s*""\s*==\s*(\S*)\s*\|\|\s*null\s*==\s*\13\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*)\s*==\s*""\s*\|\|\s*null\s*==\s*\14\s*\)|\(\s*""\s*==\s*(\S*)\s*\|\|\s*\15\s*==\s*null\s*\)|\(\s*(\S*)\s*==\s*""\s*\|\|\s*\16\s*==\s*null\s*\)/g
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It's an ugly one, but it matches a lot of common patterns for checking if a string is null or empty. I'm hopeful that folks will suggest either a better way of finding null or empty checks or help me add to my hideous regex!

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Comments 2 total

  • nihar
    niharMay 29, 2017

    You should leverage StringUtils.isEmpty(str), which checks for empty strings and handles null gracefully.
    Learn Java here: hackr.io/tutorials/learn-java

    Example:

    System.out.println(StringUtils.isEmpty("")); // true
    System.out.println(StringUtils.isEmpty(null)); // true
    Google Guava also provides a similar, probably easier-to-read method: Strings.isNullOrEmpty(str).

    Example:

    System.out.println(Strings.isNullOrEmpty("")); // true
    System.out.println(Strings.isNullOrEmpty(null)); // true

    • Gunnar Gissel
      Gunnar GisselMay 29, 2017

      That's in Apache Commons, right? It's a very useful library, and if I have it in a project already, I'm going to use it, but if I don't already have it, I won't. Guava is great too, and starting from scratch I generally toss it in.

      In this particularly case I'm dealing with a large established code base that is politically resistant to new libraries. Being that it is established, it has many different patterns from different eras of development. The regex is part of an effort to track down some of those patterns and unify them, without adding a library. I think it is pretty obvious that you wouldn't use a regex to find a pattern of coding in a new project - this is for old projects that may not have always done it the right way.

      I would be interested if you know of a better way to find more null or empty checks in strings than just adding to my regex when I find a new pattern

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