Here is a simple example that illustrates the benefit of Option beyond
avoiding null exceptions:
Here is a traditional piece of logic using traditional null if-checks. This
is using Scala syntax but would be equivalent in Java.
val variableAMayBeNull: A = methodThatMayProduceA();
if (variableAMayBeNull != null) {
val variableBMayBeNull: B = tryToGetBFromA(variableAMayBeNull);
if (variableBMayBeNull != null) {
doSomethingWithNonNullB(variableBMayBeNull);
}
}
Same logic using Option. This is Scala syntax. Java can do this but not as
nicely until it gets lambdas.
val variableAMayBeNull: Option[A] = methodThatMayProduceA();
val variableBMayBeNull: Option[B] =
variableAMayBeNull.flatMap(tryToGetBFromA);
variableBMayBeNull.foreach(doSomethingWithNonNullB);
Both blocks are logically equivalent, but the Option route is much more
concise, elegant, and maintainable. The if-logic is moved from the end
application code to inside of the Option class. Since this type of logic is
so common in application code, the code simplification benefits are quite
large.
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