title: Would it be useful to have method return values for null objects?
body: <p>Would it be useful to be able to provide method return value for null objects?</p>
  
  <p>For a List the null return values might be:</p>
  
  <pre><code>get(int) : null
  size() : 0
  iterator() : empty iterator
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>That would allow the following code that has less null checks.</p>
  
  <pre><code>List items = null;
  
  if(something) {
      items = ...
  }
  
  for(int index = 0; index &lt; items.size(); index++) {
      Object obj = items.get(index);
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This would only be used if the class or interface defined it and a null check would still work.  Sometimes you don't want to do null checks so it seems like it could be beneficial to have this as an option.</p>
  
  <p>From: <a href="http://jamesjava.blogspot.com/2007/05/method-return-values-for-null-objects.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://jamesjava.blogspot.com/2007/05/method-return-values-for-null-objects.html</a></p>