New instance gets null value

Question

I'll try to clarify my problem because I think it's too long in the other post and I don't have the run time error anymore:
Now I have the class TextEnter that I'm using for writing text from the keyboard and returning that text using the method rettext from class TextEnter:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class TextEnter extends JPanel implements ActionListener {
private JButton clickButton;
private JTextField textField;
private JLabel textLabel;
public String text;
public TextEnter() {
super(new BorderLayout()); // calling the constructor JPanel(LayoutManager)
textField = new JTextField(40); // calling the constructor JTextField(int) : nr of columns
add(textField, BorderLayout.NORTH);
clickButton = new JButton("Click to save");
clickButton.addActionListener(this);
add(clickButton, BorderLayout.CENTER);
textLabel = new JLabel("not saved yet...");
add(textLabel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
if (e.getSource() == clickButton) {
text = textField.getText();
textLabel.setText(text);
          System.out.println("THE TEXT");
               System.out.println(text);
else {
System.err.println("Error: since this class only listens to events from clickButton,");
System.err.println("it is impossible to get here!!");
public String rettext(){
return text;
public static void main(String[] arg) {
I need to use that text as the name of a file that I create in another class,
where I define an instance
private TextEnter tx= new TextEnter();
and I try to get the text doing this:
text = tx.rettext()
but I get a null value

Answer 1

I need to use that text as the name of a file that I
create in another class,
where I define an instance
private TextEnter tx= new TextEnter();
and I try to get the text doing this:
text = tx.rettext()
but I get a null valueThe method rettext() returns the String text, which only gets assigned a value after the button on the TextEnter gets clicked. Try assigning text a default value and see if that helps.