Is null a Java keyword?

Is null is a keyword in Java?

From stackoverflow

• No.It is not a keyword.

• Not according to the Java Language Specification list of keywords. On the other hand, this doesn't compile:

  int null = 10;
  

  The rules for identifiers specify that:

  An identifier is an unlimited-length sequence of Java letters and Java digits, the first of which must be a Java letter. An identifier cannot have the same spelling (Unicode character sequence) as a keyword (§3.9), boolean literal (§3.10.3), or the null literal (§3.10.7).

  I'm not sure what the benefit of making it not-a-keyword is, to be honest.

  Gamecat : Lol, this answer implies that there are implementations of Java that accept null as a keyword.

  tehvan : Gamecat, the way i read it, it says clearly the spec does _not_ consider null a keyword.

• Not a keyword - the null literal.

  an identifier (oops, no it isn't)

  Jon Skeet : It's not an identifier either, according to http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/lexical.html#40625

  Marc Gravell : Yes, I realised by mistake already and fixed it...

  Tom Hawtin - tackline : Up vote just because it's a trick question...

• No. See this for complete list KeywordList

• true and false are also literals. Java trivia: const and goto are keywords.

• null is a literal, in the same sense that false, 10, and '\n' are literals. It's not a "keyword", technically, but it is a character string that is treated specially by the compiler if the compiler encounters it in a java source file.

  So, no, you cannot name a variable "null". The lexical analyzer will decide that it is not an identifier.