Auto-infer @Nullable/@NotNull Annotations
For a long time already IntelliJ IDEA can detect probable NPE’s in your code. You need to annotate your methods/fields/variables with @Nullable/@NotNull annotations and IntelliJ IDEA will highlight possible contract violations. Good. But the annotations only begin to work when there is enough of them in the code. You do need to annotate your code to get the benefits.
IntelliJ IDEA 10 can do it for you.
Just run Analyze | Infer Nullity… and choose a scope where you want annotations to be inferred. IntelliJ IDEA uses many rules to analyze nullity and make a decision. Here are just 2 examples:
1) The IDE detects parameters that are used without checking for null:
and presumes that they are @NotNull:
2) Variables that are checked for null are assumed as @Nullable, etc.
As a result you can benefit from static code analysis without paying an entrance fee.
