Check whether a string is not null and not empty

There is a new method in java-11: String#isBlank

Returns true if the string is empty or contains only white space codepoints, otherwise false.

jshell> "".isBlank()
$7 ==> true

jshell> " ".isBlank()
$8 ==> true

jshell> " ! ".isBlank()
$9 ==> false

This could be combined with Optional to check if string is null or empty

boolean isNullOrEmpty = Optional.ofNullable(str).map(String::isBlank).orElse(true);

String#isBlank

Returns true or false based on input

Predicate<String> p = (s)-> ( s != null && !s.isEmpty());
p.test(string);

I've made my own utility function to check several strings at once, rather than having an if statement full of if(str != null && !str.isEmpty && str2 != null && !str2.isEmpty). This is the function:

public class StringUtils{

    public static boolean areSet(String... strings)
    {
        for(String s : strings)
            if(s == null || s.isEmpty)
                return false;

        return true;
    }   

}

so I can simply write:

if(!StringUtils.areSet(firstName,lastName,address)
{
    //do something
}

In case you are using Java 8 and want to have a more Functional Programming approach, you can define a Function that manages the control and then you can reuse it and apply() whenever is needed.

Coming to practice, you can define the Function as

Function<String, Boolean> isNotEmpty = s -> s != null && !"".equals(s)

Then, you can use it by simply calling the apply() method as:

String emptyString = "";
isNotEmpty.apply(emptyString); // this will return false

String notEmptyString = "StackOverflow";
isNotEmpty.apply(notEmptyString); // this will return true

If you prefer, you can define a Function that checks if the String is empty and then negate it with !.

In this case, the Function will look like as :

Function<String, Boolean> isEmpty = s -> s == null || "".equals(s)

Then, you can use it by simply calling the apply() method as:

String emptyString = "";
!isEmpty.apply(emptyString); // this will return false

String notEmptyString = "StackOverflow";
!isEmpty.apply(notEmptyString); // this will return true

With Java 8 Optional you can do:

public Boolean isStringCorrect(String str) {
    return Optional.ofNullable(str)
            .map(String::trim)
            .map(string -> !str.isEmpty())
            .orElse(false);
}

In this expression, you will handle Strings that consist of spaces as well.

If you are using Spring Boot then below code will do the Job

StringUtils.hasLength(str)

To check if a string is not empty you can check if it is null but this doesn't account for a string with whitespace. You could use str.trim() to trim all the whitespace and then chain .isEmpty() to ensure that the result is not empty.

    if(str != null && !str.trim().isEmpty()) { /* do your stuffs here */ }

Simply, to ignore white space as well:

if (str == null || str.trim().length() == 0) {
    // str is empty
} else {
    // str is not empty
}

Consider the below example, I have added 4 test cases in main method. three test cases will pass when you follow above commented snipts.

public class EmptyNullBlankWithNull {
    public static boolean nullEmptyBlankWithNull(String passedStr) {
        if (passedStr != null && !passedStr.trim().isEmpty() && !passedStr.trim().equals("null")) {
            // TODO when string is null , Empty, Blank
            return true;
        }else{
            // TODO when string is null , Empty, Blank
            return false;
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String stringNull = null; // test case 1
        String stringEmpty = ""; // test case 2
        String stringWhiteSpace = "  "; // test case 3
        String stringWhiteSpaceWithNull = " null"; // test case 4
        System.out.println("TestCase result:------ "+nullEmptyBlankWithNull(stringWhiteSpaceWithNull));
        
    }
}

BUT test case 4 will return true(it has white space before null) which is wrong:

String stringWhiteSpaceWithNull = " null"; // test case 4

We have to add below conditions to make it work propper:

!passedStr.trim().equals("null")

If you use Spring framework then you can use method:

org.springframework.util.StringUtils.isEmpty(@Nullable Object str);

This method accepts any Object as an argument, comparing it to null and the empty String. As a consequence, this method will never return true for a non-null non-String object.

To check on if all the string attributes in an object is empty(Instead of using !=null on all the field names following java reflection api approach

private String name1;
private String name2;
private String name3;

public boolean isEmpty()  {

    for (Field field : this.getClass().getDeclaredFields()) {
        try {
            field.setAccessible(true);
            if (field.get(this) != null) {
                return false;
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println("Exception occurred in processing");
        }
    }
    return true;
}

This method would return true if all the String field values are blank,It would return false if any one values is present in the String attributes

I've encountered a situation where I must check that "null" (as a string) must be regarded as empty. Also white space and an actual null must return true. I've finally settled on the following function...

public boolean isEmpty(String testString) {
  return ((null==testString) || "".equals((""+testString).trim()) || "null".equals((""+testString).toLowerCase()));
}

In case you need to validate your method parameters you can use follow simple method

public class StringUtils {

    static boolean anyEmptyString(String ... strings) {
        return Stream.of(strings).anyMatch(s -> s == null || s.isEmpty());
    }

}

Example:

public String concatenate(String firstName, String lastName) {
    if(StringUtils.anyBlankString(firstName, lastName)) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Empty field found");
    }
    return firstName + " " + lastName;
}

The better way to handle null in the string is,

str!=null && !str.equalsIgnoreCase("null") && !str.isEmpty()

In short,

str.length()>0 && !str.equalsIgnoreCase("null")

import android.text.TextUtils;

if (!TextUtils.isEmpty(str)||!str.equalsIgnoreCase("") {
    ...
}