Check whether a string is not null and not empty

Use org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils

I like to use Apache commons-lang for these kinds of things, and especially the StringUtils utility class:

import org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils;

if (StringUtils.isNotBlank(str)) {
    ...
} 

if (StringUtils.isBlank(str)) {
    ...
} 

What about isEmpty() ?

if(str != null && !str.isEmpty())

Be sure to use the parts of && in this order, because java will not proceed to evaluate the second part if the first part of && fails, thus ensuring you will not get a null pointer exception from str.isEmpty() if str is null.

Beware, it's only available since Java SE 1.6. You have to check str.length() == 0 on previous versions.

---

To ignore whitespace as well:

if(str != null && !str.trim().isEmpty())

(since Java 11 str.trim().isEmpty() can be reduced to str.isBlank() which will also test for other Unicode white spaces)

Wrapped in a handy function:

public static boolean empty( final String s ) {
  // Null-safe, short-circuit evaluation.
  return s == null || s.trim().isEmpty();
}

Becomes:

if( !empty( str ) )