Develop Reference

Null Pointer Exception in String Comparison

while(true)
{
String input = "";
try {
input = in.readLine();
} catch (IOException e1) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
System.out.println(e1 + "Exception occured when reading user input");
}
// Sleep
try
{
Thread.sleep(USER_THROTTLE);
}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println(toString()+" has input interrupted.");
}
if(input .equals("w")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("a")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("s")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("d")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("eat")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("drink")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("place")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("swim")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("command_kill")){action_event(input);}
if(input .equals("help")){action_event(input);}
}
}
Here is the stack trace
Exception in thread "Thread-1" java.lang.NullPointerException
at Platypus_User$Inport.run(Platypus_User.java:64)
This is being ran in Eclipse on Mac OSX.
A Null Pointer Exception occurs following the second catch block where the string is compared to "w" then if it is "w" the action_event method is called.
I have no clue why this would be happening. I would appreciate any advice.

I guess in is a BufferedReader. readLine will return null if End Of The Stream is reached.
See BufferedReader documentation

BufferedReader.readLine() can return null, so check for null on input.

First, avoid repetitions in code. You can collect all allowed inputs in one Set and then just check if it contains particular value--thus making code look much more readable, short and clean.
Second, you need to perform null check, because in.read() can return null as mentioned in other answers. null input could also be used for termination of while loop.
So I would rewrite your code as following:
Set<String> allowedInputs
= new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList("w", "a", "s", "d", "eat")); // <- add remaining allowed inputs here
String input = "";
while (input != null) {
try {
input = in.readLine();
} catch (IOException e1) {
System.out.println(e1 + "Exception occured when reading user input");
}
try {
Thread.sleep(USER_THROTTLE);
} catch(Exception e) {
System.out.println(toString() + " has input interrupted.");
}
if (input != null && allowedInputs.contains(input)) { // <- check if input is allowed
action_event(input);
}
}

Never invoke methods on objects which are not initialized. input may hold a null value. So before comparing you must make sure that object is not null.
Best approach to handle such situations would be by comparing a constant value with "input" instead of comparing input with a constant value.
eg "w".equals(input)

How do I display an exception?

I am checking if number the user entered is Zeckendorf and I want to display an exception if it is not, how do i do that? Also how do I convert the Zeckondorf to its decimal equivalent?
import java.util.Scanner;
public class IZeckendorfNumberConvertor {
static String number;
int zeckonderEquivalent;
static Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);
public static void main(String[] args) {
convertToZeckonderNumber();
isTrueZeckonderNumber();
}
private static boolean isTrueZeckonderNumber() {
System.out.println("Enter a Zeckonder Number:");
number = scanner.nextLine();
if (number.equals("10100"))
{
return true; }
else if (number.equals("010011") || number.equals("010100"))
{
return false; }
return false;
}
private static void convertToZeckonderNumber() {
}}

I advise you not to display an exception (i.e. trace and such) as it is very user Unfriendly.
You can use the throw syntax to throw a proper exception :
throw new Exception("Given number is not a Zeckendorf number");
but be sure to catch it and display a nice and clean message :
try {
// Your input code goes here
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}
Another easier option will be to just check the return value of the method and print the results accordingly.
I will recommend to use the latter solution as exceptions are used when something bad and unexpected happens in your program and you want to handle it gracefully. In your case the behavior is expected (i.e. user giving a wrong number) so checking the return value will be much clean and easier.

Use try catch block for catch an exception
try {
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
Also use throw for throw a new exception

Assuming to really do want to display the exception, and not a more user friendly message, the first step is probably to get the exception as a string. Then you can do what you like with that string (echo to console, place in a javax.swing.JTextArea, email it, etc).
If you just want the message from the exception, then getMessage() will do:
try { ... }
catch(FooException e) {
String msg = e.getMessage();
}
However, if you want the whole exception, stack trace and all, you'll want something like this:
public static String stackTrace(Exception e) {
StringWriter w = new StringWriter();
e.printStackTrace(new PrintWriter(w));
return w.toString();
}
// ...
try { ... }
catch(FooException e) {
String st = stackTrace(e);
}
If you just want to echo the full stack trace to the console, there is the printStackTrace(), no-arg method:
try { ... }
catch(FooException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
If you want to take more control of the presentation of the stack trace you can get the details with:
try { ... }
catch(FooException e) {
StackTraceElement[] stes = e.getStackTrace();
// Do something pretty with 'stes' here...
}

You can just print a error message to the user saying that the input is wrong using a simple if.
if(yourCondition){
// Happy scenario
// Go shead
}else{
// Error Scenario
System.out.println("Error. Invalid Input.");
// If you persist to throw an exception, then you can do something like this
// throw new Exception("Exception Explanation"); // I've commented this, but you can uncomment it if needed
// But the advice is to display an error message, than throw a exception.
}
And regarding the conversion, you can convert binary to decimal like this
int i = Integer.parseInt(binaryString, 2); // 2 indicates the radix here, since you want to convert from binary.

With this code snippet you can convert the String into an integer :
int numberAsInt;
try {
numberAsInt = Integer.parseInt(number);
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
//Will throw an Exception
}
If you want to create your own Exception class, you can do it like shown here or just throw a RuntimeException with
throw new RuntimeException("Your Message");

My opinion, you can try some thing like following
public static void main(String[] args) {
if(!isTrueZeckonderNumber()){
// your message should goes here
System.out.println("Your message");
}
}
If you really want to throws an exception do following
private static boolean isTrueZeckonderNumber() throws Exception{
System.out.println("Enter a Zeckonder Number:");
number = scanner.nextLine();
if (number.equals("10100")) {
return true;
} else{
throw new Exception("your message");
}
}

What do you mean you want to display an exception?
I would suggest just giving the user feedback instead, as exceptions are used more commonly for EXCEPTIONAL actions that are not supposed to happen.
However if you do want to, you can print a message explaining what happened.
try {
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}

How to avoid printing exception and assign another action when exception was encountered? My attempt don't work right

I am encountering an error when user doesn't type anything into input statement. I thought of using Try/Catch blocks to instead throw exception to set boolAskRepeat to true which should skip to the end of the code and repeat the loop.
This doesn't work, and I believe I'm missing something but I'm not sure what... It still throws exception saying:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: 0
at java.lang.String.charAt(Unknown Source)
at ITSLab03.main(ITSLab03.java:34)
Which is this line of code: inputStatus = input.readLine().toLowerCase().charAt(0);
What am I doing wrong here?
while (boolAskStatus == true)
{
System.out.print("Employment Status (F or P): ");
try
{
inputStatus = input.readLine().toLowerCase().charAt(0);
if (inputStatus == "f".charAt(0))
{
boolAskStatus = false;
String stringCheckSalary = null;
boolean boolCheckSalary = true;
while (boolCheckSalary == true)
{
// some code
}
outputData(inputName, inputStatus, calculateFullTimePay(inputSalary));
}
else if (inputStatus == "p".charAt(0))
{
// some code
outputData(inputName, inputStatus, calculatePartTimePay(inputRate, inputHours));
}
else boolAskStatus = true;
}
catch (IOException e) { boolAskStatus = true; }
}

You need to catch StringIndexOutOfBoundsException as well (If you observe the stack trace properly this is the exception you are getting)
catch (StringIndexOutOfBoundsException e) {
boolAskStatus = true;
}
(or)
catch Exception which catches all runtime exceptions
catch (Exception e) {
boolAskStatus = true;
}

The normal try catch pattern should look like this:
try
{
// code that is vulnerable to crash
}
catch (Specific-Exception1 e1)
{
// perform action pertaining to this exception
}
catch (Specific-Exception2 e2)
{
// perform action pertaining to this exception
}
....
....
catch (Exception exp) // general exception, all exceptions will be caught
{
// Handle general exceptions. Normally i would end the program or
// inform the user that something unexpected occurred.
}

By using .charAt(0), you are assuming that the String has a length > 0.
You could simplify this a bunch by just doing:
String entry = input.readLine().toLowerCase();
if (entry.startsWith("f")) {
...
}
else if ("entry".startsWith("p")) {
...
}

Your code doesn't work the way you want because input.readLine().toLowerCase().charAt(0) throws a StringIndexOutOfBoundsException, which is not an IOException, so the catch block never gets hit. You can make it work by changing the catch to
catch (StringIndexOutOfBoundsExceptione e) { boolAskStatus = true; }
But...
It's generally not a good idea to base your program's normal behaviour on exception handling. Think of exception throwing as something that could happen, but usually won't. Why not use something like:
final String STATUS_F = "f";
final String STATUS_P = "p";
String fromUser = null;
do {
String rawInput = input.readLine().toLowerCase();
if (rawInput.startsWith(STATUS_F)) {
fromUser = STATUS_F;
} else if (rawInput.startsWith(STATUS_P)) {
fromUser = STATUS_P;
}
} while (fromUser == null);
if (STATUS_F.equals(fromUser)) {
// do something
} else if (STATUS_P.equals(fromUser)) {
// do something else
} else {
// Shouldn't be able to get here!
throw new Exception("WTF!?");
}
It much easier for another person reading this to understand why the program loops and how the loop is controlled, in part because the code that figures out what the user is inputting and the code that decides what to do with that information are separated. Plus, you don't need to deal with exceptions.

How to continue with If-Conditions in Try-Catch

I have this line of Code
try {
String txtText = article.getTxtText().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(article.getTxtText().toString())){
textPropertyList.add(txtText);
}
String txtLongText = article.getObjLongTextData().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(txtLongText)){
textPropertyList.add(txtLongText);
}
String txtShortText = article.getObjShortTeaserData().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(txtShortText)) {
textPropertyList.add(txtShortText);
}
} catch (NullPointerException e) {
}
It is possible, that only one of the three properties are set. But if one property isnt set, I get this NullpointerException. I catch it, but then the try-Block isnt continued.
So e.g. if the article.getTxtText() method returns null, I dont get the txtLongText and txtShortText Strings either, although at least one of them has a not empty String set.
So the question is, how can I continue the try-block although there's is an Exception caught?
Thanks a lot.

You should either use 3 try-catch blocks or just use a null-check around every case.
if (article.getTxtText() != null) {
// do part 1
}
if (article.getObjLongTextData() != null) {
// do part 2
}

I would imagine that the correct approach to this is to have three try/catch blocks around each point of code. The whole point of a try block is that you are trying the code as a lump and if it fails anywhere you abandon it. For what you are describing you would need three try/catches around each possible point of failure.
That having been said you are probably better off testing for null rather than relying on exception handling to do that. Exception handling should be for exceptionalm unforeseen events, not for flow control in a program.

If you must do this with exceptions (and I don't think you should), then you need to have 3 separate try/catch blocks:
try {
String txtText = article.getTxtText().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(article.getTxtText().toString())){
textPropertyList.add(txtText);
}
} catch (NullPointerException e) {}
try {
String txtLongText = article.getObjLongTextData().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(txtLongText)){
textPropertyList.add(txtLongText);
}
} catch (NullPointerException e) {}
try {
String txtShortText = article.getObjShortTeaserData().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(txtShortText)) {
textPropertyList.add(txtShortText);
}
} catch (NullPointerException e) {}
Once an exception is thrown in your code you cannot restart execution in the middle of the try block.
Having said that I would always prefer to detect the null pointer with an if test rather than relying on exception handling for this non-exceptional condition.

do defensive programming ,check for nulls.
if ( variable != null ){
...
}

The simplest and better approach from my point of view would be break the try - catch block in three different try-catch block, something like the following :
try {
String txtText = article.getTxtText().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(article.getTxtText().toString())){
textPropertyList.add(txtText);
}
} catch (NullPointerException e) {
//Handle Exception
}
try {
String txtLongText = article.getObjLongTextData().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(txtLongText)){
textPropertyList.add(txtLongText);
}
} catch (NullPointerException e) {
//Handle Exception
}
try {
String txtShortText = article.getObjShortTeaserData().toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText(txtShortText)) {
textPropertyList.add(txtShortText);
}
} catch (NullPointerException e) {
//Handle Exception
}

I'd recommend a different design:
private void addProperty(Object property, Collection<String> properties) {
if (property == null) {
return;
}
String textProperty = property.toString();
if (StringUtils.hasText()) {
properties.add(textProperty);
}
}
Usage:
addProperty(article.getTxtText());
// ...

Why are you doing this in a try / catch, just use simple if
if ( txtText != null ){
...
}
if ( txtLongText != null ){
...
}

Java: Try-Catch-Continue?

Let's say I can a set of statements:
try {
String a = getProperty("a");
String b = getProperty("b");
String c = getProperty("c");
} catch(Exception e) {
}
Now, lets say property b was not found and the function throws an exception. In this case, how would I just continue or perhaps set b to null without having to write a try-catch block for each property? I mean, a,b,c exist but sometime they might not be found at all during which an exception is thrown.

Assuming you can't change the function so that it returns null when the property isn't found, you are kind of stuck wrapping everything in its own try catch block -- especially if you want for every value that can be retrieved to be retrieved (as opposed to letting the first value that fails cancel the whole operation.)
If you have a lot of these properties to retrieve, perhaps it would be cleaner to write a helper method to use:
String getPropertySafely(String key) {
try {
return getProperty(key);
} catch (Exception e) {
return null;
}
}

You have to put a try-catch around each statement. There is no continue (like there is in ON ERROR ... RESUME blocks in VB). Instead of:
String a = null;
try {
a = getProperty("a");
} catch(Exception e) {
...
}
String b = null;
try {
b = getProperty("b");
} catch(Exception e) {
...
}
String c = null;
try {
c = getProperty("c");
} catch(Exception e) {
...
}
you could write:
public String getPropertyNoException(String name) {
try {
return getProperty(name);
} catch (Exception e) {
return null;
}
}
Personally I think a getProperty() is a poor candidate for throwing exceptions just for all this extra boilerplate required

Since you are using the same function each time you might be able to put this in a loop:
String[] abc = new String[3];
String[] param = {"a", "b", "c"};
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
try {
abc[i] = getProperty(param[i]);
} catch(Exception e) {
}
}
but this is rather contrived and would only be useful for a large number of properties. I suspect you will have to simple write 3 try-catch.

You should reconsider how getProperty is handled if you plan to use many of them because there isn't a plain way to do it.
You can exploit finally statement but you still need a try-catch for every call.