When to use 'java.util.Objects.*'?

Question

I was going through Java 7 features and they talked about java.util.Objects class.

What I am failing to understand is what is the functional difference betwee

java.util.Objects.toString(foo)
vs
foo == null ? "":foo.toString()

All I could see extra was a null check and functional notation instead of OOP style.

What am I missing ?

Answer 1

The main advantage of java.util.Objects.toString() is that you can easily use it on a return value that might be null, rather than needing to create a new local variable (or worse calling the function twice).

Compare

Foo f = getFoo();
String foo = (f==null) ? "null" : f.toString();

or the cringe-worthy and bug inducing

String foo = (getFoo()==null) ? "null" : getFoo().toString()

to the Objects.toString based version

String foo = Objects.toString(getFoo());