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2024.3

'null' assignment

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Last modified: 03 December 2024

Reports variables that are assigned to null outside a declaration.

The main purpose of null in Java is to denote uninitialized reference variables. In rare cases, assigning a variable explicitly to null is useful to aid garbage collection. However, using null to denote a missing, not specified, or invalid value or a not found element is considered bad practice and may make your code more prone to NullPointerExceptions. Instead, consider defining a sentinel object with the intended semantics or use library types like Optional to denote the absence of a value.

Example:

Use the Ignore assignments to fields option to ignore assignments to fields.