Warning: field is used but is never assigned a non-“null” value

Question

I have implemented a Java EE page which connects to an inventory webservice. I have implemented an inventory controller as shown below:

public class InventoryController {
    @Autowired
    private WebServiceTemplate inventoryWsTemplate;

...

}

inventoryWsTemplate is declared as a bean in web-servlet.xml.

The program works but I'm getting a warning that says:

field is used but is never assigned a non-"null" value

What should I do?

Answer 1

Just add a SuppressWarnings annotation:

@Autowired
@SuppressWarnings("null")
private WebServiceTemplate inventoryWsTemplate;

Normally I'd add a comment to justify the annotation (eg // Used by guice ) but in this case coming hot on the heels of an Autowired annotation, I don't think it's necessary.

EDIT: I can't reproduce the problem on Eclipse to start with, so I'm not sure which annotation value is required. You should check the list of supported annotation values for your compiler.

Answer 2

If you don't like suppressing warnings, you can change private to any other access modifier. Package-private probably being the best choice (besides private).