Empty Strings - Help!!

Question

I'm a new JSP developer, but this issue seems like it should be an easy one to solve. I just can't do it!!
I'm executing a query against a table that allows nulls in most columns. I'm doing a select against all rows, and putting the data into Strings. I need to test certain strings, to see if they are empty, so I can continue with my logic.
But, I can't seem to get it to work...I keep getting the generic WebSpherer Error 500 with no useful info in the log.
Here's what I'm using:
String valueText = "";
valueText = CustomBean.getColumnValue("valueText");
if (valueText.equals("null")||valueText.equals("")){
out.println("its empty!!");
}else{
out.println("its not");
This works if i query against a non existent recordID, but a real record with no value for valueText results in an error every time.
Please help me!

Answer 1

Try:
String valueText = "";
valueText = CustomBean.getColumnValue("valueText");
if (valueText==null || valueText.equals("")){
   out.println("its empty!!");
}else{
   out.println("its not");
}If valueText is null you need to use the == operator not the equals method because that will give you a NullPointerException.