What's the difference between Objects.requireNonNullElse() and Optional.ofNullable().orElse()?

Question

Java 9 introduces the requireNonNullElse and requireNonNullElseGet methods to the Objects class. Are these functionally any different to the Optional.ofNullable() orElse() and orElseGet() methods?

String foo = null;
Objects.requireNonNullElse(foo, "nonNull");//returns the string "nonNull"
Optional.ofNullable(foo).orElse("nonNull");//also returns the string "nonNull"

If they have no functional difference, why was the Objects one added now?

Answer 1

There is one minor difference in their behavior. Objects.requireNonNullElse() requires that one of the parameters be non-null, otherwise, a NullPointerException is thrown.

String foo = null, bar = null;
Optional.ofNullable(foo).orElse(bar); //returns a null value
Objects.requireNonNullElse(foo, bar); //throws a NullPointerException