Help with homework - nullPointerException

[elliotHenry]

Hello again folks

I have a homework assignment that I'm having some trouble with and hoping the nice folks here can help point out where I'm going wrong. It's the usual nullPointerException and I undderstand that I seem to be trying to envoke code on a null value, but can't see where I'm going wrong. Code below:

/**
 * Title: WordCounter class skeleton
 * Description: Complete this class as described 
 * @author M257 Module Team
 */

package tma01q2;
import java.io.*;
import java.io.File;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.StringTokenizer;
public class WordCounter
{  
    //TODO add the required instance variables
    public String fileName;
    public Scanner sc;
    public int totalWords;
    public int totalEven;
    public int totalOdd;
    public int totalLetters;

    public void WordCounter(String aFile)throws IOException
             //TODO add the required constructor
    {
        fileName = "";
        aFile = fileName;

    }

    //TODO add the openRead method
    public boolean openRead()
    {
        boolean yn = false;
        try
        {
            Scanner sc = new Scanner(new File("haiku.txt"));
            yn = true;
        }
        catch (IOException ex)
        {
                System.out.println("problem with file " + ex);
        }
        return yn;
    }
           
    //TODO add the countWords method
    public boolean countWords()
    {
       if (openRead())
        {    
              String lineIn = sc.toString();
              StringTokenizer in = new StringTokenizer(lineIn, "\n\t\r");
        }
       sc.close();
       return countWords();
    }    
    //TODO add the updateStatistics method
    public void updateStastics(String word)
    {
       word = sc.next();
       int len = word.length();
       int bol = 2;
       totalWords++;
       totalLetters = totalLetters + len;
       if(len % bol > 0)
        {
           totalOdd++;
        }
       else
         {
           totalEven++;
         }
        System.out.println(word + " [" + word.length() + "]");
       }
    //TODO add the toString method
    @Override
    public String toString()
    {
      String tWords = new Integer(totalWords).toString();
      String tEven = new Integer(totalEven).toString();
      String tOdd = new Integer(totalOdd).toString();
      String tLetters = new Integer(totalLetters).toString();
      return fileName + tWords + tEven + tOdd + tLetters;
    }

    //TODO add the saveResults method
    public void saveResults (String outputFile) throws FileNotFoundException
    {
        PrintWriter results = new PrintWriter("C:\\Users\\jazzermonty\\uni\\M275\\TMA01\\TMA01Download\\TMA01Q2\\results.txt");
        results.println(toString());

    }
}

The main method:

/*
 * TestWordCounter.java skeleton class
 * Complete this class according to the question instructions
 */

package tma01q2;


public class TestWordCounter
{
   //TODO add code to create a WordCounter for the haiku.txt file   
   //to gather statistics about the words in the file    
   //and to save the results
     public static void main(String[] args)
    {
         try
         {
         WordCounter j = new WordCounter();
         j.countWords();
         j.saveResults("results.txt");
         }
         catch (Exception exp)
         {
             System.out.println("Problem with file " + exp);
         }
    }
     
}

I think the problem is in the openRead() method in the WordCounter class but not sure where the problem lies. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

[Fubarable]

The problem is usually evident if you know which object is null. Can you tell us which line throws the exception?

[elliotHenry]

The problem is usually evident if you know which object is null. Can you tell us which line throws the exception?

Hi Fubarable

Thanks for replying. How do I tell which line is the issue? I'm using netbeans 6.9.1. All the code is doing is throwing the exception in the main method.

Thanks

[Fubarable]

The exception will tell you the line numbers of the involved code.

[Fubarable]

Ah, you're shadowing a variable. Since you re-declare the sc variable in the openRead() method, the sc variable in that method is local to that method and only exists within the method. Once the method exits, that Scanner object is no longer visible or usable by the rest of the program.

The solution is not to re-declare sc in openRead. Instead use the sc variable that is declared in the class and visible throughout the class.

[elliotHenry]

Thanks for that

Now getting a Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StackOverflowError. The error is on line at tma01q2.WordCounter.openRead(WordCounter.java:36).

[elliotHenry]

I seem to have managed to create a continious loop between the openRead() and the countWords() methods. Not sure how I managed that.

[Fubarable]

I seem to have managed to create a continious loop between the openRead() and the countWords() methods. Not sure how I managed that.

You're calling the method countingWords() within the method countingWords(), and so it will repeat forever or until it runs out of memory:

    public boolean countWords()
    {
       if (openRead())
        {    
              String lineIn = sc.toString();
              StringTokenizer in = new StringTokenizer(lineIn, "\n\t\r");
        }
       sc.close();
       return countWords(); // ****** here!
    }

Also, shouldn't your openRead use the file name passed into the class's constructor, not some hard-coded String?

[elliotHenry]

Ok, so I think I've got to the bottom of the problem, it seems that I was returning countWords() within the method countWords(). Not clever.