JButton in inner class cuasing Null Pointer Excp

Question

Ok so i have this class called "square" and in it there is a JButton. There is a method called createButton() and getButton().
In create button it takes the classes JButton called button and instantiates:
public void createButton() {
button = new JButton("");
and
public JButton getButton() {
return button;
Now I make a frame and a panel in a upper class called "program" and i make a multidimensional array of squares. Then i make call createButton() for each square.
Then later on I call
panel.add(square[z][q].getButton());
Now all of this compiles fine but when i run it i get a null pointer exception on the line above. Why????
Thanks,
PS: 5 duke dollars for person who helps me.

Answer 1

What I think is happening is you are doing something like this (Where 'Square' is the name of the class that creates the button):
Square square[8][8] = new Square[8][8];
The problem is that this does not create the actual square objects. It simply creates an array that can hold the square objects but all the objects in the array are null. You should just initialized the objects by using two for loops:
Square square[8][8] = new Square[8][8];
for(int x = 0; x = square.length; x++)
for(int y = 0; y = square[x].length; y++)
square[x][y] = new Square(---);
That will put things into the array and they won't be null.