How to avoid NullPointerException in Scala while storing query result in variable - scala

Question

Here is a code that requires a change:
val activityDate = validation.select("activity_date").first.get(0).toString
When we run a job, 'activityDate' might return null as a result of query since there might not be any data in db. In this case we get NullPointerException. I need to update this code to avoid NPE.
I tried to do it in different ways but there is always smth missing. I should probably use Match Expression here but have face some errors while initializing it.

Answer 1

The usual way to model some kind of data that might or might not be there in Scala is the Option type. The Option type has two concrete implementations, Some for a value which is there and the None singleton to represent any absent value. Option conveniently has a constructor that wraps a nullable value and turns it into either a Some(value) for non-null values and None for nulls. You can use it as follows:
Option(validation.select("activity_date").first.get(0))
You can apply transformations to it using various combinators. If you want to transform the piece of data itself into something more meaningful for your application, map is usually a good call. The following applies the logic you had before:
val activityDate: Option[String] =
Option(validation.select("activity_date").first.get(0)).
map { activityDate => activityDate.toString }
Note that now activityDate is an Option itself, which means that you have to explicitly handle the case in which the data is not there. You can do so with a match on the concrete type of the option as follows:
activityDate match {
case Some(date) => // `date` is there for sure!
case None => // handle the `select` returned nothing
}
Altenrnatively if you want to apply a default value you can use the getOrElse method on the Option:
val activityDate: String =
Option(validation.select("activity_date").first.get(0)).
map { activityDate => activityDate.toString }.
getOrElse("No Data")
Another possibility to apply a default value on a None and a function to the value in a Some is using fold:
val activityDate: String =
Option(validation.select("activity_date").first.get(0)).
fold("No Data")(activityDate => activityDate.toString)
As a final note, you can shorten anonymous functions in these cases as follows:
val activityDate: String =
Option(validation.select("activity_date").first.get(0)).
fold("No Data")(_.toString)
Where _ is used to refer to the only parameter.