Why doesn't System.out.println() throw NullPointerException?

This might be a very basic question, but I still don't know the answer. 

String abc = null;    
System.out.println(abc);

Why does System.out.println print "null" and does not throw NullPointerException?

Jon Skeet
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quotationmark

It's behaving as it's documented to. PrintStream.println(String) is documented as:

Prints a String and then terminate the line. This method behaves as though it invokes print(String) and then println().

PrintStream.print(String) is documented as:

Prints a string. If the argument is null then the string "null" is printed. Otherwise, the string's characters are converted into bytes according to the platform's default character encoding, and these bytes are written in exactly the manner of the write(int) method.

When in doubt, read the documentation :)

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