In Java, can Class.forName ever return null?

Question

In Java, can Class.forName ever return null, or will it always throw a ClassNotFoundException or NoClassDefFoundError if the class can't be located?

Answer 1

Java Docs says it will throw ClassNotFoundException if the class cannot be found so I'd say it never returns null.

Answer 2

Since null is not mentioned anywhere in the documentation for this method and because there doesn't seem to be any situation in which it would make sense for the method to return null instead of throwing an exception, I think it's pretty safe to assume that it never returns null.

It won't throw a NoClassDefFoundError, but it may throw ClassNotFoundException.