Is it a good practice to call to an overloaded method with null params?

Question

this is a question about programming best practices, I didn't know how express the question in the Title, sorry, here we go.

I had a method in a Manager, or Controller, this way:

public boolean myMethod(Param1 param1);

And, because a change in the application, I had to redefine it like this, because it calls to other method which needs param2 and param3:

public boolean myMethod(Param1 param1, Param2 param2, Param3 param3);

Now I realize that the method with 3 params "always" (for now, maybe in the future there is a change and I need to call it with non-null params) will be called with param2=null and param3=null, so in the implementation of 1st method I did:

public boolean myMethod(Param1 param1) {
  return this.myMethod(param1, null, null);
}

public boolean myMethod(Param1 param1, Param2 param2, Param3 param3) {
  /* Call to other methods that is needed to pass it param2 and param3 */
}

So the call to the method of the Manager, and the original way, is,:

boolean isTrue = myManager.myMethod(param1);

This is one option, the other option is to pass the null params from the call:

boolean isTrue = myManager.myMethod(param1, null, null);

And let only one method in my Manager:

public boolean myMethod(Param1 param1, Param2 param2, Param3 param3);

So, the real questions are: What is the best way to do this talking about best practices? Is it wrong if in the implementation of tha Manager I overload a method and call it with null params?

Thanks in advance!

Greetings.

Answer 1

The overloaded method with fewer parameters that just call the other method with more parameters, is a common practice in Java, and is the Java way of implementing "default" parameters.

Note that the default value doesn't have to be null, it can be any value.

Normally when calling a method with multiple parameters, the values passed in will give a clue to the nature of the parameter. Parameter constants like null, false, true, or 0 doesn't give a clue to the parameters meaning, which makes the code is less readable.

Usually a call with fewer parameter is more obvious, so overloading with "default" parameters is preferable to only one method with a lot of constant parameters.