I'm parsing HTML data. The String may be null or empty, when the word to parse does not match.
So, I wrote it like this:
if(string.equals(null) || string.equals("")){
Log.d("iftrue", "seem to be true");
}else{
Log.d("iffalse", "seem to be false");
}
When I delete String.equals(""), it does not work correctly.
I thought String.equals("") wasn't correct.
How can I best check for an empty String?
5 Answers
Correct way to check for null or empty or string containing only spaces is like this:
if(str != null && !str.trim().isEmpty()) { /* do your stuffs here */ }
You can leverage Apache Commons StringUtils.isEmpty(str), which checks for empty strings and handles null gracefully.
Example:
System.out.println(StringUtils.isEmpty("")); // true
System.out.println(StringUtils.isEmpty(null)); // true
Google Guava also provides a similar, probably easier-to-read method: Strings.isNullOrEmpty(str).
Example:
System.out.println(Strings.isNullOrEmpty("")); // true
System.out.println(Strings.isNullOrEmpty(null)); // true
You can use Apache commons-lang
StringUtils.isEmpty(String str) - Checks if a String is empty ("") or null.
or
StringUtils.isBlank(String str) - Checks if a String is whitespace, empty ("") or null.
the latter considers a String which consists of spaces or special characters eg " " empty too. See java.lang.Character.isWhitespace API
import com.google.common.base.Strings;
if(!Strings.isNullOrEmpty(String str)) {
// Do your stuff here
}
This way you check if the string is not null and not empty, also considering the empty spaces:
boolean isEmpty = str == null || str.trim().length() == 0;
if (isEmpty) {
// handle the validation
}