Question

The documentation for @ParametersAreNonnullByDefault says, that:

This annotation can be applied to a package, class or method to indicate that the method parameters in that element are nonnull by default unless …

I don’t consider a method’s return type/value to be it’s parameter. It is only part of its signature, so this is kind of ambiguous for me.

The Java tutorial for methods seems to think like me.

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As Joachim Sauer pointed out for me in the comments section of his answer, the name @ParametersAreNonnullByDefault (parameters) should’ve clearly indicated for me that this annotation doesn’t apply to methods’ return types/values. I was blind! 🙂 Thanks Joachim!

In light of this I can only says that an @EverythingIsNonnullByDefault should exist somwhere. 🙂

Answer 1

I don’t see a reason why @ParametersAreNonnullByDefault should apply to return values.