Java 17: implementing NPE in Optional Chaining with Spring Data JPA
I'm upgrading from an older version and After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm working with a `NullPointerException` when attempting to use Optional chaining with my Spring Data JPA repository... My goal is to retrieve an optional entity and then chain a method call to one of its attributes, but I keep running into issues. Here's the code snippet that I'm working with: ```java Optional<User> userOptional = userRepository.findById(userId); String userEmail = userOptional.map(User::getEmail).orElse("default@example.com"); ``` When `userOptional` is empty because the `userId` does not exist in the database, I would expect the email to fall back to the default value. However, I'm getting a `java.lang.NullPointerException` at runtime. After digging into the stack trace, it appears to be stemming from the `getEmail()` method. I’ve verified that the database connection is established, and I’ve confirmed that calling `findById(userId)` returns an empty Optional when the user doesn't exist. I’ve also tried using `userOptional.isPresent()` and checking manually, but it feels redundant when Java's Optional is designed for these scenarios. Here's my alternative approach: ```java if (userOptional.isPresent()) { String userEmail = userOptional.get().getEmail(); } else { String userEmail = "default@example.com"; } ``` This works fine but it feels less elegant. Am I missing something in the way I'm using Optional? Is there a best practice for handling cases like this with method chaining, or is my `getEmail()` method not correctly implemented? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger web app I'm building. I'm working on a API that needs to handle this. Thanks for your help in advance!