NullPointerException in Collectors.toMap with null entry values

Collectors.toMap throws a NullPointerException if one of the values is null. I don't understand this behaviour, maps can contain null pointers as value without any problems. Is there a good reason why values cannot be null for Collectors.toMap?

Also, is there a nice Java 8 way of fixing this, or should I revert to plain old for loop?

An example of my problem:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

class Answer {
    private int id;

    private Boolean answer;

    Answer() {
    }

    Answer(int id, Boolean answer) {
        this.id = id;
        this.answer = answer;
    }

    public int getId() {
        return id;
    }

    public void setId(int id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    public Boolean getAnswer() {
        return answer;
    }

    public void setAnswer(Boolean answer) {
        this.answer = answer;
    }
}

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List answerList = new ArrayList<>();

        answerList.add(new Answer(1, true));
        answerList.add(new Answer(2, true));
        answerList.add(new Answer(3, null));

        Map answerMap =
        answerList
                .stream()
                .collect(Collectors.toMap(Answer::getId, Answer::getAnswer));
    }
}

Stacktrace:

```
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.util.HashMap.merge(HashMap.java:1216)
at java.util.stream.Collectors.lambda$toMap$168(Collectors.java:1320)
at java.util.stream.Collectors$$Lambda$5/1528902577.accept(Unknown Source)
at java.util.stream.ReduceOps$3ReducingSink.accept(ReduceOps.java:169)
at java.util.ArrayList$ArrayListSpliterator.forEachRemaining(ArrayList.java:1359)
at java.util.stream.AbstractPipeline.copyInto(AbstractPipeline.java:512)
at java.util.stream.AbstractPipeline.wrapAndCopyInto(AbstractPipeline.java:502)
at java.util.stream.ReduceOps$ReduceOp.evaluateSequential(Red

You can work around this known bug in OpenJDK with this:

Map collect = list.stream()
        .collect(HashMap::new, (m,v)->m.put(v.getId(), v.getAnswer()), HashMap::putAll);

It is not that pretty, but it works. Result:

1: true
2: true
3: null

(this tutorial helped me the most.)

EDIT:

Unlike Collectors.toMap, this will silently replace values if you have the same key multiple times, as @mmdemirbas pointed out in the comments. If you don't want this, look at the link in the comment.

Stack Overflow Q#24630963, score: 564