NullPointerException from Boolean

Question

This is one for the java purists I think. I recently had an issue with a method to perform a custom parsing of String values to a Boolean. A simple enough task, but for some

Answer 1

Interesting but no answer tells you why this happens in the first place.

This has to do with the ternary expression.

The compiler interprets null as a null reference to Boolean, applies the autoboxing/unboxing rules for Boolean (on a null) => you get a NullPointerException at runtime.