Uses for Optional

Question

Having been using Java 8 now for 6+ months or so, I\'m pretty happy with the new API changes. One area I\'m still not confident in is when to use Optional. I se

Answer 1

Optional class lets you avoid to use null and provide a better alternative:

• This encourages the developer to make checks for presence in order to avoid uncaught NullPointerException's.

• API becomes better documented because it's possible to see, where to expect the values which can be absent.

Optional provides convenient API for further work with the object: isPresent(); get(); orElse(); orElseGet(); orElseThrow(); map(); filter(); flatmap().

In addition, many frameworks actively use this data type and return it from their API.