Optional in Java 8: Part 1

In this lesson, we will look at the newly introduced Optional class. We will also look at different ways of creating an Optional.

We'll cover the following

What is an Optional?

Java 8 has introduced a new class Optional<T> in the java.util package.

The Optional<T> is a wrapper class that stores an object of type T. The object may or may not be present in the optional.

According to Oracle, “Java 8 Optional works as a container type for the value which is probably absent or null. Java Optional is a final class present in the java.util package.”

Let us look at how things worked before optional was introduced. In the below example, we have a getEmployee() method which gets the employee object from a Map. After fetching the employee object, we will print its details.

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