Null pointer exception using ImageIO

Question

Hi all I'm not sure this belongs here or in the applet forum, but if don't belong here I'll move it. Anyway My question is this, I am trying to load an image into an applet before I was just doing this
public static Image getImage(String filename){
          if (applet == null)
              return null; // for now
         else
              return applet.getImage(applet.getDocumentBase(), filename);
     }Since then I've discovered ImageIO and have switched to this
public static BufferedImage getImage(String filename){
          BufferedImage img = null;
          //File image = new File(filename);
          try{
               //img = ImageIO.read(applet.getDocumentBase().getClass().getResource(filename));
               //img = ImageIO.read(image);
               img = ImageIO.read(ImageHandler.getFile(filename));
          }catch(IOException e){
               e.printStackTrace();
               return null;
          return img;Now my problem is that this is giving me a null pointer exception, each of the 3 times I try to load up the img variable I get a NPE and I cannot figure out why. I know the file is where its supposed to be and I know it is not corrupt since it works with the other code. So my question is why am I getting an exception with the second piece of code? Any advice or suggestions are appreciated thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Well that was part of the problem, thanks for that I didn't catch that at first, but now it just created a new exception in that I'm getting a illegal argument exception saying that the input == null. Here is the entire class I should have posted it in the first place sorry
import java.applet.Applet;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
public class ImageHandler {
     static Applet applet = null;
     public static void setApplet(Applet applet){
          ImageHandler.applet = applet;
     public static BufferedImage getImage(String filename){
          BufferedImage img = null;
          if(applet == null){
               System.out.println("Applet is null");//for testing
               return null; //for now
          }else{
               try{
                    img = ImageIO.read(applet.getDocumentBase().getClass().getResource(filename));
               }catch(IOException e){
                    e.printStackTrace();
                    return null;
               return img;
}The applet gets set in another class here:
ImageHandler.setApplet(this);so unless I'm missing something (obviously I am or I won't be here lol) the applet is not null here is the errors I get again thanks for the help you've already given anymore is appreciated.
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: input == null!
     at javax.imageio.ImageIO.read(Unknown Source)
     at ImageHandler.getImage(ImageHandler.java:27)
     at BackgroundImages.<init>(BackgroundImages.java:17)
     at BackGrounds.<init>(BackGrounds.java:17)
     at MainGame.init(MainGame.java:51)
     at sun.applet.AppletPanel.run(Unknown Source)
     at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)