SpEL, the Spring Expression Languages allows developers fine-grained control over the values injected into fields and parameters. Using the `@Value` annotation, it is possible to inject values from sources such as system properties.

## Why is this an issue?

The `@Value` annotation does not guarantee that the property is defined. Particularly if a field or parameter is annotated as nullable, it indicates that the developer assumes that the property may be undefined.

An undefined property may lead to runtime exceptions when the Spring framework tries to inject the autowired dependency during bean creation.

This rule raises an issue when a nullable field or parameter is annotated with `@Value` and no default value is provided.

## How to fix it

Add a default value to the `@Value` annotation. A default value can be supplied by using the colon (`:`) operator. As the field is nullable, the default value should most likely be `#{null}`.

### Code examples

#### Noncompliant code example

    @Nullable
    @Value("${my.property}") // Noncompliant, no default value is provided, even though the field is nullable
    private String myProperty;

#### Compliant solution

    @Nullable
    @Value("${my.property:#{null}}") // Compliant, a default value is provided
    private String myProperty;

## Resources

### Articles & blog posts

- Baeldung - Using Spring @Value With Defaults