Are generated Java gRPC RPC methods guaranteed not to return null values?

Question

In Java gRPC, are the generated RPC service methods guaranteed not to return a null value?

For example, with this service definition:

service MyExample {
  rpc MyExampleCall (MyExampleRequest) returns (MyExampleResponse);
}

... I might have Java calling code like this:

class RandomApp {
  MyExampleServiceBlockingStub stub;

  void randomMethod() {
    var request = MyExampleRequest.newBuilder().build();

    var response = stub.myExampleCall(request);

    if (response == null) {
      ...
      ...
    } else {
      ...
      ...
    }
  }
}

For Protocol Buffers, no Protobuf methods accept or return nulls unless otherwise specified.

• https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/reference/java-generated

And, if that also extends to gRPC Java generated code, I imagine I can avoid null-handling code like in my example above.

So, I'm just looking for an explicit answer to my question.

Answer 1

This is more gRPC semantics than Protobuf semantics; and yes, it is reasonable to assume response will never be null, although you should have exception handling around the call.