Sorry Im a beginner

Question

Here is part of an xml file
<field name="ip.frag_offset" showname="Fragment offset: 0" size="2" pos="20" show="0" value="4000"/>
<field name="ip.ttl" showname="Time to live: 64" size="1" pos="22" show="64" value="40"/>
<field name="ip.proto" showname="Protocol: TCP (0x06)" size="1" pos="23" show="0x06" value="06"/>
<field name="ip.checksum" showname="Header checksum: 0xdcd2 (correct)" size="2" pos="24" show="0xdcd2" value="dcd2"/>
<field name="ip.src" showname="Source: 192.168.2.21 (192.168.2.21)" size="4" pos="26" show="192.168.2.21" value="c0a80215"/>
<field name="ip.addr" showname="Source or Destination Address: 192.168.2.21 (192.168.2.21)" size="4" pos="26" show="192.168.2.21" value="c0a80215"/>
<field name="ip.dst" showname="Destination: 192.168.3.10 (192.168.3. etc etc
i use a SAXParser to read it including the code
public void startElement(String URI, String localName,
String qName, Attributes atts) {
if (qName.equals("field")) {
String n = atts.getValue("name");
this works ok until I reach a line where there is no "name" attribute
in such a case n is null and I get the error
n is null
Problem with the SAX parser.
java.lang.NullPointerException
how can I avoid this

Answer 1

First. No need to apologize. We are all beginners at some point.
It sounds like you are getting a NullPointerException when you try to dereference n.
Anwhere you have a '.' following the n will throw a NullPointerException when n is null.
You need to do a null check.
if (n != null) something = n.getSomething();You can also do things like this:
if (n != null && n.getSomething().equals("blahblah")) { //...