if-unless gives the same retun in thymeleaf engine

Question

I am trying to perfom an if statement in thymeleaf engine for one of the properties of an objects in a List.

My purpose is if somoLetu.hSecondReading == null I should see a text of No Second Reading,but if not I should see Second Reading. But The output displays Second Reading text in both scenarios either null or not, What Am i doing wrong.

Here is how I do it in thymeleaf in masomo.html file

        <div th:each="somoLetu : ${masomoYote}" class="container my-5">

        <h1 th:text= "${somoLetu.date}"></h1>
        <h1 th:text= "${somoLetu.familiaName}"></h1>
        <h1 th:text= "${somoLetu.kanda}"></h1>
  
        <div th:if= "${somoLetu.hSecondReading == null}" ><h1>No Second Reading</h1></div>
        <div th:unless= "${somoLetu.hSecondReading == null}" ><h1>Second Reading</h1>  <h1 th:text="${somoLetu.hSecondReading}"></h1></div>
       </div>
        </div>

These are the properties of my object

@Entity
@Table(name = "misale")
public class Misale {

                      
   @Id
   @Column(name ="date")
   private String date;
   @Column(name ="h_second_reading")
   private String hSecondReading; 
   private String familiaName;
   private String kanda;
   
    .................}

This is my method in Controller class to get all the list

@Autowired
 private MisaleRepository misaleRepository;
 @GetMapping("/masomo")
    public String masomoAngalia(Model model){
        model.addAttribute("masomoYote", misaleRepository.findAll() );
   
        return "masomo";
    
}



        

Answer 1

What is the value of hSecondReading? Are you sure it is null and not an empty string? Those are not the same thing.

You should be aware whether a variable is (or can be) null or not. This can lead to more serious errors in Java, if you don't pay attention to that.

Maybe use Thymeleaf's isEmpty helper: ${#strings.isEmpty(somoLetu.hSecondReading)}