XML parsing error in portal application...

Question

Hello,
I have this exception java.lang.NullPointerException#  with a xml like this
<users><user><email></email></user></users>
When email is filled like this it's worked but when it is empty no...
<users><user><email>[email protected]</email></user></users>
The code is like this :
NodeList EmailList = firstPersonElement.getElementsByTagName("email");
Element EmailElement = (Element)EmailList.item(0);
NodeList textEmailList = EmailElement.getChildNodes();
if (textEmailList == null)
System.err.println("null !");
String Email = null;
Email = ((Node)textEmailList.item(0)).getNodeValue().trim();
System.err.println("Email : " + Email);
How can I resolve it ?
Thanks a lot
best regards

Answer 1

Hello,
my guess is that in the case of an empty <email> element, your textEmailList reference should already be null (you should also have the "null !" output in your error stream), so a NPE will be inevitable in the line
Email = ((Node)textEmailList.item(0)).getNodeValue().trim();
In order to prevent that, you could simply put the three lines below the if() {} construct in an else {} block:
NodeList EmailList = firstPersonElement.getElementsByTagName("email");
Element EmailElement = (Element)EmailList.item(0);
NodeList textEmailList = EmailElement.getChildNodes();
if (textEmailList == null) {
  System.err.println("null !");
else {
  String Email = null;
  Email = ((Node)textEmailList.item(0)).getNodeValue().trim();
  System.err.println("Email : " + Email);
Does this help?
Best regards,
Jens