Make String.format(“%s”, arg) display null-valued arguments differently from “null”

Question

Consider the custom toString() implementation of a bean:

@Override
public String toString() {
    String.format(\"this is %s\", this.someField);
}
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Answer 1

To avoid repeating ternary operator you can wrap it in more readable method that will check if your object is null and return some default value if it is true like

static  T changeNull(T arg, T defaultValue) {
    return arg == null ? defaultValue : arg;
}

usage

String field = null;
Integer id = null;
System.out.printf("field is %s %n", changeNull(field, ""));
System.out.printf("id is %d %n", changeNull(id, -1));
System.out.printf("id is %s %n", changeNull(field, ""));

output:

field is  
id is -1 
id is