When is it desired to not implement toString() in Java?

Question

A lead developer on my project has taken to referring to the project\'s toString() implementations as \"pure cruft\" and is looking to remove them from the code base.

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Answer 1

I figured I'd weigh in with a more modern perspective given that this question is now almost 10 years old.

toString is obviously helpful for debugging - you need look no further than all of the other answers here which attest to that - but debugging information isn't business logic.

Having a toString method in every single class is visual clutter which obscures the useful behaviour of the class. We also need to remember to maintain it - either manually or by regenerating the method from our IDE - every time we change the class fields.

So what can we do to address these problems without removing the method altogether? The answer is to automatically generate it. Project Lombok's @ToString annotation can automatically generate a toString method for you at compile-time which includes any combination of fields that you choose.

Basic sample usage:

@ToString
public class Foo {
    private int i = 0;
}

Which will become equivalent to the following at compile-time:

public class Foo {
    private int i = 0;

    public String toString() {
        return "Foo(i=" + this.i + ")";
    }
}