Hi, In Java "null" exists and is used a lot. But if an action fails returning null might not always be the best solution, an Exception can also be thrown. If the returned object must be non null w/o exception an empty string is preferable. I would say it is a case by case problem during the implementation however it can be specified in the spec if the case is clear. Andre Merzky wrote:

Quoting [Andre Merzky] (Apr 20 2006):

...

131) clearify what a NULL string/object is we sometimes return - OPEN, URGENT

iObvious again. Opinions? Should that even go into the API spec, or into the language bindings? What should we say in the spec?

No opinion.

I think NULL does not make sense for Java and Fortran (Is that true?) so I guess it should stay out of the general spec.

I changed all occurences to either throw, or empty string returns etc. There are only a couple of places where we used NULL anyway.

...

Volonteers?

Cheers, Andre

Cheers, Andre.

-- Best regards, Pascal Kleijer ---------------------------------------------------------------- HPC Marketing Promotion Division, NEC Corporation 1-10, Nisshin-cho, Fuchu, Tokyo, 183-8501, Japan. Tel: +81-(0)42/333.6389 Fax: +81-(0)42/333.6382