diff --git a/lang/java/avro/src/main/java/org/apache/avro/io/BinaryEncoder.java b/lang/java/avro/src/main/java/org/apache/avro/io/BinaryEncoder.java
index 22d0326165c..aacb83b88f4 100644
--- a/lang/java/avro/src/main/java/org/apache/avro/io/BinaryEncoder.java
+++ b/lang/java/avro/src/main/java/org/apache/avro/io/BinaryEncoder.java
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ public void writeString(Utf8 utf8) throws IOException {
 
   @Override
   public void writeString(String string) throws IOException {
-    if (0 == string.length()) {
+    if (string.isEmpty()) {
       writeZero();
       return;
     }