Groovy's safe navigation operator allows to avoid NullPointerExceptions when accessing to methods or attributes on variables that may assume null values. It is equivalent to nullable_var == null ? null : nullable_var.myMethod()

def lst = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']

def f_value = lst.find { it.startsWith('f') }    // 'foo' found
f_value?.length()    // returns 3

def null_value = lst.find { it.startsWith('z') }    // no element found. Null returned

// equivalent to  null_value==null ? null : null_value.length()
null_value?.length()    // no NullPointerException thrown

// no safe operator used
​null_value.length()​​​​​    // NullPointerException thrown

class User {
  String name
  int age
}

def users = [
  new User(name: "Bob", age: 20),
  new User(name: "Tom", age: 50),
  new User(name: "Bill", age: 45)
]

def null_value = users.find { it.age > 100 }    // no over-100 found. Null 

null_value?.name?.length()    // no NPE thrown
//  null ?. name  ?. length()
// (null ?. name) ?. length()
// (    null    ) ?. length()
// null

null_value?.name.length()    // NPE thrown
//  null ?. name  . length()
// (null ?. name) . length()
// (    null    ) . length()  ===> NullPointerException

the safe navigation on null_value?.name will return a null value. Thus length() will have to perform a check on null value to avoid a NullPointerException.