A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
It would be nice to introduce a keyword like so:

nonnull SomeType foo() ;

Which means that the function can not return a null.

or...

void foo(nonnull SomeType bar) ;

Which means that bar can not be null.

or.........

nonnull SomeType bar ;
Which means bar must be initialized to a nonnull value before being used.

JUSTIFICATION :
NullPointerException's are the bane of software development everywhere.
Many times it is caused by not knowing when somethign can be null.

Having lexical checks would greatly enhance the ability to write bulletproof code.


EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
nonnull SomeType p ;
p = null ;

Error, attempt to assign to a nonnull variable.

SomeType p ;
p.foo() ;

Error, attempt to use a non-null variable.
###@###.### 2005-2-24 10:39:58 GMT