Declare and initialize empty String

[Cathie Lee]

I have read someone's code. There are two String declarations and initializations for empty String. Could anyone explain the difference? Which is better way to use?

1. String = "";
2. String = null;

Thanks a lot,

[Mark Patrick]

First, you need a variable name in there for it to be legal.

 
1. String a = "";
2. String b = null;
 

Question: does line 2 initialize 'b' to an empty string?

Line 1 create a String object and assigns it the reference 'a'.
Line 2 only creates a reference( 'b' ) to a String object. It will need to be assigned a String object before it can be used. If you try to use before-hand, you'll get a null pointer exception.

Which one is correct? Preference.

[Maureen Charlton]

Probably going to sound totally dumb here and embarras myself!!

BUT if I don't say something I won't learn...........

I thought the following:

null means it is empty i.e. nothing there

And

" " means it is just initialised to something

(Please, please be kind!)

[Cathie Lee]

Oh, my typo, without variables...
Thanks for the explanation.

So my understand is:
Line 1: "" means a value with empty.
Line 2: null means no value.

The same as in Oracle.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks,

[Mark Patrick]

null means "nothing".

"" is a String object with in length of 0.
null means no object

Similar to Oracle. In Oracle, you can't perform math on NULL because NULL is non-existant. In Java, instead of meaning no-value, null means no object is assigned to the variable.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Aloe1138 --

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