I have seen requests for a simpler way of dealing with nulls than Option(x) so here are a couple ideas: Note: This only works with Scala 2.8+ // create an alias from Option.apply to ?scala> import Option.{apply => ?} import Option.{apply=>$qmark}scala> ?(null)res0: Option[Null] = Nonescala> ?(3)res1: Option[Int] = Some(3)scala> ?(3).getOrElse(10)res2: Int = 3scala> ?(null).getOrElse(10)res3: Any =