title: Can I set null as the default value for a @Value in Spring?
body: <p>I'm currently using the @Value Spring 3.1.x annotation like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@Value("${stuff.value:}")
  private String value;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This puts an empty String into the variable if the attribute is not present. I would like to have null as the default instead of an empty String. Of course I also want to avoid an error when the property stuff.value is not set.</p>