Optional class was introduced in Java 8. The purpose of using the class is to provide a type-level solution for representing Optional values instead of null references.

There are several ways of creating Optional objects.

• To create an empty Optional object, empty() static method must be used – Optional<T> empty = Optional.empty();
• Creating Optional object with the static method of()

String name = "somestring";
Optional<String> opt = Optional.of(name);

However, the argument passed to the of() method can’t be null. Otherwise, we’ll get a NullPointerException.

But, in case we expect some null values, we can use the

• ofNullable() method

String name = null;
Optional<String> opt = Optional.ofNullable(name);

By doing this, if we pass in a null reference, it doesn’t throw an exception but rather returns an empty Optional object.