When should null values of Boolean be used?

Use boolean rather than Boolean every time you can. This will avoid many NullPointerExceptions and make your code more robust.

Boolean is useful, for example

  • to store booleans in a collection (List, Map, etc.)
  • to represent a nullable boolean (coming from a nullable boolean column in a database, for example). The null value might mean “we don’t know if it’s true or false” in this context.
  • each time a method needs an Object as argument, and you need to pass a boolean value. For example, when using reflection or methods like MessageFormat.format().

Leave a Comment