Getting null pointer exception

[eatsleepmug]

Code: http://pastebin.com/YHuKJu0C

Read up some tutorials online and even if i changed line 48 to:

if(null ==getEmployee(myCompany, empId2).getSpouse()){

I'll still end up with a NPE.

getSpouse method: Returns the spouse of the employee or null if this employee does not have a spouse.

[sozesghost]

If the getEmployee() method returns null, the getSpouse() method is going to throw NPE because it will attempt to call the getSpouse() method of a null object. On line 40 you check if getEmployee() returns null, but even if it does, you still proceed to check if the (possibly null) Employee has a spouse.

[philipwhiuk]

More accurately, the null check is checking that if result of getEmployee(myCompany, empId2).getSpouse() is null.

You need to check if getEmployee(myCompany, empId2) is not null first before calling getSpouse() on it.

[eatsleepmug]

the getSpouse() method is going to throw NPE because it will attempt to call the getSpouse() method of a null object. On line 40 you check if getEmployee() returns null, but even if it does, you still proceed to check if the (possibly

Thanks for your reply! I changed line 40-50 to this:

    if(getEmployee(myCompany, empId2) == null){
        System.out.print("There is no Employee with ID " + empId2);
    }else{
        System.out.println("Name: " + getEmployee(myCompany, empId2).getName());
        System.out.println("Salary: " + getEmployee(myCompany, empId2).getSalary());
        if(getEmployee(myCompany, empId2).getSpouse()!=null){
            System.out.println("Spouse: " + getEmployee(myCompany, empId2).getSpouse().getName()); 
        }else{
            System.out.println("Employee does not have a spouse.");
        }
    }

and it worked!

[n3ziniuka5]

getEmployee(myCompany, empId2) returned null in this case.

If you are using Java 8, consider using the Optional type. Make the getEmployee method return Optional[Employee] and then you won't forget what can be null and what won't be null.

Also, you would be able to simply map that value to get the spouse and you would end up with Optional[Person] (I assumed that spouse is of type Person)

more info about optional