JOptionPane.showInputDialog and the cancel button

Question

so i'm using a JOptionPane.showInputDialog, and everything works except when i click the cancel button to exit the window, it gives me an error.
how can i remedy this?
here's a section of my code: (a is an array, as is b)
firstWord = JOptionPane.showInputDialog
("What company's sloagan is/was: "+a[count]+"?");
if(firstWord.equalsIgnoreCase(b[count]))
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog (null,
"Thats Right, the company was "+b[count]+".");
count++;
int YesNo = JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog (null,
"Do you want to play again?", "Choose One", JOptionPane.YES_NO_OPTION,JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
if(YesNo==1) //this should exit out if you click no
System.exit (0);
if(count==10)
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,
"Game Over. You Won.");
System.exit (0);
else
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog (null,
"Sorry, you aren't that smart. Guess again.");
}]

Answer 1

1- Seems like you misstyped your code tags...
2- When you say: "it gives me an error", please provide details (e.g. stack trace)
3- Read the API doc, it says: showInputDialog returns user's input, or null meaning the user canceled the input.
So firstWord.equalsIgnoreCase(b[count]) will throw a NullPointerException in that case.
You might check for null value.
Note:str1.equals(str2) will throw a NullPointerException when str1 is null, but str2 can be null without a NullPointerException being thrown:String str1 = null;
String str2 = "toto";
System.out.println(str1.equals(str2)); // NullPointerException
System.out.println(str2.equals(str1)); // ok (prints false)