Why is “null” present in C# and Java?

Question

We noticed that lots of bugs in our software developed in C# (or Java) cause a NullReferenceException.

Is there a reason why \"null\" has even been included in the l

Answer 1

Commonly - NullReferenceException means that some method didn't like what it was handed and returned a null reference, which was later used without checking the reference before use.

That method could have thown some more detailed exception instead of returning null, which complies with the fail fast mode of thinking.

Or the method might be returning null as a convenience to you, so that you can write if instead of try and avoid the "overhead" of an exception.