I am using Gson to parse Json. What I don't understand what the return type will be if you don't catch the Runtime Exception. I was expecting it to be null, but it is not null when evaluating with a simple if statement.

My code looks something like this:

public X x() {
   return gson.fromJson(jsonString, X.class);
}

then from another function I call the function:

public void y() {
  final X x = x();
  if (x == null) {
    System.out.println("x == null")
  }
}

I was expecting x to be null, but it isn't because the print statement is not called? What is the value of x? How can if them. I have my problem by using a catch block in the x() function and returning null. But I am just wondering what the value of function x() is(if any?)? Hopefully I make any sense at all.