Since Java 7 you can use the static method java.util.Objects.equals(Object, Object) to perform equals checks on two objects without caring about them being null.

If both objects are null, it will return true, if one is null and the other isn't, it will return false. Otherwise, it will return the result of calling equals on the first object with the second as argument.

You cannot use the dereference (dot, '.') operator to access instance variables or call methods on an instance if that instance is null. Doing so will yield a NullPointerException.

It is common practice to use something you know to be non-null for string comparison. For example, "something".equals(stringThatMayBeNull).

The usual idiom is this:

return (str1 == null ? str2 == null : str1.equals(str2));

string == null compares if the object is null. string.equals("foo") compares the value inside of that object. string == "foo" doesn't always work, because you're trying to see if the objects are the same, not the values they represent.

Longer answer:

If you try this, it won't work, as you've found:

CopyString foo = null;
if (foo.equals(null)) {
    // That fails every time. 
}

The reason is that foo is null, so it doesn't know what .equals is; there's no object there for .equals to be called from.

What you probably wanted was:

CopyString foo = null;
if (foo == null) {
    // That will work.
}

The typical way to guard yourself against a null when dealing with Strings is:

CopyString foo = null;
String bar = "Some string";
...
if (foo != null && foo.equals(bar)) {
    // Do something here.
}

That way, if foo was null, it doesn't evaluate the second half of the conditional, and things are all right.

The easy way, if you're using a String literal (instead of a variable), is:

CopyString foo = null;
...
if ("some String".equals(foo)) {
    // Do something here.
}

If you want to work around that, Apache Commons has a class - StringUtils - that provides null-safe String operations.

Copyif (StringUtils.equals(foo, bar)) {
    // Do something here.
}

Another response was joking, and said you should do this:

Copyboolean isNull = false;
try {
    stringname.equalsIgnoreCase(null);
} catch (NullPointerException npe) {
    isNull = true;
}

Please don't do that. You should only throw exceptions for errors that are exceptional; if you're expecting a null, you should check for it ahead of time, and not let it throw the exception.

In my head, there are two reasons for this. First, exceptions are slow; checking against null is fast, but when the JVM throws an exception, it takes a lot of time. Second, the code is much easier to read and maintain if you just check for the null pointer ahead of time.

With Java 7 you can now directly do a null safe equals:

Objects.equals(x, y)

(The Jakarta Commons library ObjectUtils.equals() has become obsolete with Java 7)

Yes, it's possible. Just do:

if ("something".equals(string)) {
    // Do something
}

This will prevent throwing a java.lang.NullPointerException since the Object who calls equals() is not null.