Try-Catch Instead of Null Check When Using Several Getters

Question

My problem is the following, I have quite a long Getter, i.e.,

objectA.getObjectB().getObjectC().getObjectD().getObjectE().getName();

Due to "bad" database/entity design (some things were introduced later than others) it happens that getObjectB(), getObjectC() or getObjectD() could return NULL.

Usually we use null-checks all the time, but in this case, I'd have to use

ObjectB b = objectA.getObjectB();
if (b != null) {
    ObjectC c = b.getObjectC();
    if (c != null) {
        ObjectD d = c.getObjectD();
        if (d != null)
           return d.getObjectE().getName();
    }
}
return "";

Instead it would be much easier to simply use a try-catch block

try {
   return objectA.getObjectB().getObjectC().getObjectD().getObjectE().getName();
} catch (NullPointerException e) {
   return "";
}

In this case I don't really care which object returned NULL, it's either display a name or don't. Are there any complications or is it bad design to use try-catch instead of checks?

Thanks for your input.

Answer 1

If it is an option to use Java 8, you can use Optional as follows:

Optional.ofNullable(objectA)
    .map(a -> a.getObjectB())
    .map(b -> b.getObjectC())
    .map(c -> c.getObjectD())
    .map(d -> d.getObjectE())
    .map(e -> e.getName())
    .orElse("");