In this post, I will be sharing how to fix the error: Empty character literal in Java. When we need to declare an empty char, usually, we use ' ' (empty single quotes) as a char. I have already shared 3 other ways to represent empty char in Java. As always, first, we will produce the Error Empty Character literal before moving on to the solution.
Read Also: Comparing characters in Java
[Fixed] Error: Empty Character literal
Example 1: Producing the error by printing the empty single quotes character
We can easily produce this error by printing the ' ' (empty single quotes) character as shown below:
public class EmptyCharacterLiteral {
public static void main(String args[]) {
char ch = '';
System.out.println("Print empty char" + ch);
}
}
Output:
/EmptyCharacterLiteral.java:3: error: empty character literal
char ch = ' ';
^
1 error
Explanation:
The cause of this compilation error is due to trying to print empty character in Java. As a result, we were getting an error: empty character literal.Solution:
To overcome this compilation error, we can assign the char data type variable ch with the values Character.MIN_VALUE, or '\u0000', or '\0', as shown below:public class EmptyCharacterLiteral {
public static void main(String args[]) {
// Assign null character to ch variable
char ch = Character.MIN_VALUE;
//OR
//char ch = '\u0000';
//OR
//char ch = '\0';
System.out.println("Print empty char" + ch);
}
}
Output:
Print empty char
Example 2: Producing the error by comparing the empty single quotes character
We can easily produce this error by comparing the ' ' (empty single quotes) character as shown below:
public class EmptyCharacterLiteral2 {
public static void main(String args[]) {
char ch = 'a';
// Comparing null character to ch variable
if (ch == (''))
System.out.println("char is: " + ch);
}
}
Output:
/EmptyCharacterLiteral2.java:5: error: empty character literal
if (ch == (''))
^
1 error
Explanation:
The cause of this compilation error is due to trying to compare empty single quotes character with the char data type variable ch. As a result, we were getting error: empty character literal.Solution:
To overcome this compilation error, we can replace the empty single quotes character with the values Character.MIN_VALUE, or '\u0000', or '\0', as shown below:public class EmptyCharacterLiteral2 {
public static void main(String args[]) {
char ch = 'a';
// Comparing null character to ch variable
if (ch == Character.MIN_VALUE)// OR (ch == '\u0000') OR (ch == '\0')
System.out.println("char is: " + ch);
}
}
Output:
(No Output Printed)
That's all for today. Please mention in the comments in case you are still facing the error: empty character literal in Java.
