Java in Notes/Domino Explained: Can I cast a null pointer?


In short – yes you can. There is nothing that prevents you from compiling the following:

String s1 = (String)null;

I even think you’ll have to do it to make your code compile for one for the methods of lotus.domino-package. I can’t of the top of my head remember which method it is, but there is one method where the compiler will force you to cast a null to a String. You’ll also sometimes end up casting a null pointer when doing dynamic classloading.

I told you it would be a short post.

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lekkim

Positive, competent, out-spoken, frank and customer focused architect and developer with a strong foundation in web, cloud and product development. I'm a strong advocate for API first and cloud based solutions and development. I have a knack for being able to communicate and present technically complicated matters in conference, customer and training settings. I've previously acted as team member and leader in a product organisation.

2 thoughts on “Java in Notes/Domino Explained: Can I cast a null pointer?”

  1. Yep, you’re correct. The method is NotesFactory.createSession().

    When trying to create to connect through NRPC, you can use createsession(null, null, null). Unfortunately, this matches several different method signatures.

    To let the compiler know which method you want to call, you have to cast all parameters to String, since the signature will be unique in this case. Thus:

    Session s = NotesFactory.createSession((String) null, (String) null, (String) null);

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