Question

I have the following code

System.out.println("" + null);

and the output is null.
How does Java do the trick in string concatenation?

Answer 1

Because Java converts the expression "A String" + x to something along the lines of "A String" + String.valueOf(x)

In actual fact I think it probably uses StringBuilders, so that:

"A String " + x + " and another " + y

resolves to the more efficient

new StringBuilder("A String ")
    .append(x)
    .append(" and another ")
    .append(y).toString()

This uses the append methods on String builder (for each type), which handle null properly