diff --git a/streaming/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/dstream/TransformedDStream.scala b/streaming/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/dstream/TransformedDStream.scala
index 5d46ca0715ffd0146d0d523719f20097ae28dca8..ab01f47d5cf99ca355aee0b23fc1692a483e60ba 100644
--- a/streaming/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/dstream/TransformedDStream.scala
+++ b/streaming/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/dstream/TransformedDStream.scala
@@ -17,9 +17,11 @@
 
 package org.apache.spark.streaming.dstream
 
+import scala.reflect.ClassTag
+
+import org.apache.spark.SparkException
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.{PairRDDFunctions, RDD}
 import org.apache.spark.streaming.{Duration, Time}
-import scala.reflect.ClassTag
 
 private[streaming]
 class TransformedDStream[U: ClassTag] (
@@ -38,6 +40,12 @@ class TransformedDStream[U: ClassTag] (
 
   override def compute(validTime: Time): Option[RDD[U]] = {
     val parentRDDs = parents.map(_.getOrCompute(validTime).orNull).toSeq
-    Some(transformFunc(parentRDDs, validTime))
+    val transformedRDD = transformFunc(parentRDDs, validTime)
+    if (transformedRDD == null) {
+      throw new SparkException("Transform function must not return null. " +
+        "Return SparkContext.emptyRDD() instead to represent no element " +
+        "as the result of transformation.")
+    }
+    Some(transformedRDD)
   }
 }
diff --git a/streaming/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/BasicOperationsSuite.scala b/streaming/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/BasicOperationsSuite.scala
index 255376807c957d0619ee01fe0afa187379717b49..9988f410f0bc1542f6ae014c4b873bdb09ab1094 100644
--- a/streaming/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/BasicOperationsSuite.scala
+++ b/streaming/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/streaming/BasicOperationsSuite.scala
@@ -211,6 +211,19 @@ class BasicOperationsSuite extends TestSuiteBase {
     )
   }
 
+  test("transform with NULL") {
+    val input = Seq(1 to 4)
+    intercept[SparkException] {
+      testOperation(
+        input,
+        (r: DStream[Int]) => r.transform(rdd => null.asInstanceOf[RDD[Int]]),
+        Seq(Seq()),
+        1,
+        false
+      )
+    }
+  }
+
   test("transformWith") {
     val inputData1 = Seq( Seq("a", "b"), Seq("a", ""), Seq(""), Seq() )
     val inputData2 = Seq( Seq("a", "b"), Seq("b", ""), Seq(), Seq("")   )