如果对于客户端代码来说，知道已找到和未找到之间的区别很重要，并且这应该是一个例程行为，那么最好返回null。然后客户端代码可以决定要做什么。

抛出异常的好处:

Cleaner control flow in your calling code. Checking for null injects a conditional branch which is natively handled by try/catch. Checking for null doesn't indicate what it is you're checking for - are you checking for null because you're looking for an error you're expecting, or are you checking for null so you don't pass it further on downchain? Removes ambiguity of what "null" means. Is null representative of an error or is null what is actually stored in the value? Hard to say when you only have one thing to base that determination off of. Improved consistency between method behavior in an application. Exceptions are typically exposed in method signatures, so you're more able to understand what edge cases the methods in an application account for, and what information your application can react to in a predictable manner.

有关更多示例的解释，请参见:http://metatations.com/2011/11/17/returning-null-vs-throwing-an-exception/

我更喜欢只返回null，并依赖于调用者来适当地处理它。(因为没有更好的词)例外是，如果我绝对“确定”这个方法将返回一个对象。在这种情况下，失败是一个例外，应该和应该抛出。

如果您正在使用抛出异常的库或其他类，则应该重新抛出异常。这里有一个例子。Example2.java类似于library，而Example.java使用它的对象。Main.java就是一个处理这个异常的例子。您应该向调用端的用户显示有意义的消息和堆栈跟踪(如果需要)。

Main.java

public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
    Example example = new Example();

    try {
        Example2 obj = example.doExample();

        if(obj == null){
            System.out.println("Hey object is null!");
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.println("Congratulations, you caught the exception!");
        System.out.println("Here is stack trace:");
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}
}

Example.java

/**
 * Example.java
 * @author Seval
 * @date 10/22/2014
 */
public class Example {
    /**
     * Returns Example2 object
     * If there is no Example2 object, throws exception
     * 
     * @return obj Example2
     * @throws Exception
     */
    public Example2 doExample() throws Exception {
        try {
            // Get the object
            Example2 obj = new Example2();

            return obj;

        } catch (Exception e) {
            // Log the exception and rethrow
            // Log.logException(e);
            throw e;
        }

    }
}

Example2.java

 /**
 * Example2.java
 * @author Seval
 *
 */
public class Example2 {
    /**
     * Constructor of Example2
     * @throws Exception
     */
    public Example2() throws Exception{
        throw new Exception("Please set the \"obj\"");
    }

}

返回null，异常就是:你的代码所做的不是预期的事情。

如果方法返回一个集合，则返回一个空集合(如上所述)。但请不要收钱。EMPTY_LIST或类似的!(以Java为例)

如果该方法检索单个对象，则您有一些选项。

If the method should always find the result and it's a real exception case not to find the object, then you should throw an exception (in Java: please an unchecked Exception) (Java only) If you can tolerate that the method throws a checked exception, throw a project specific ObjectNotFoundException or the like. In this case the compiler says you if you forget to handle the exception. (This is my preferred handling of not found things in Java.) If you say it's really ok, if the object is not found and your Method name is like findBookForAuthorOrReturnNull(..), then you can return null. In this case it is strongly recomminded to use some sort of static check or compiler check, wich prevents dereferencing of the result without a null check. In case of Java it can be eg. FindBugs (see DefaultAnnotation at http://findbugs.sourceforge.net/manual/annotations.html) or IntelliJ-Checking.

如果决定返回null，请小心。如果你不是项目中唯一的程序员，你会在运行时得到nullpointerexception(在Java或其他语言中)!所以不要返回在编译时没有检查的空值。