Why Some(null) isn't considered None?

Question

I am curious:

scala> Some(null) == None
res10: Boolean = false

Why isn\'t Some(null) transformed to None?

Answer 1

I think the others in the thread do a good job explaining why Some(null) "should" exist, but if you happen to be getting Some(null) somewhere and want a quick way to turn it into None, I've done this before:

scala> val x: Option[String] = Some(null)
x: Option[String] = Some(null)

scala> x.flatMap(Option(_))
res8: Option[String] = None

And when the starting Option is a legit non-null value things work as you probably want:

scala> val y: Option[String] = Some("asdf")
y: Option[String] = Some(asdf)

scala> y.flatMap(Option(_))
res9: Option[String] = Some(asdf)