Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException

When I run my code I get the following message: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException

The program is supposed to extract words from a file and then place them in a Binary Search Tree. This is a past HW assignment that has already been graded. According to the grader, the only thing wrong with my program is the display() method. I will not be able to fix the display() method until I can get rid of this "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException" message. My question is, what do I have to do to get rid of this error message? I know my code is ridiculously long and I apologize for that. Thanks.

Code:

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package assignment8;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.lang.String;

public class Assignment8 {
        public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
       
                String lineIn;    //Line of text in the file
                String nextWord;  //Next word in the line of text
                File readFile = new File("Speech.txt");
                //To reduce confusion Speech.txt.txt has been renamed Speech.txt
                Scanner input = new Scanner(readFile);  //read from file
                BSTree tree = new BSTree();
               
                while (input.hasNext()) {
                        lineIn = input.nextLine();               
                        while (lineIn.length() > 0) {                               
                                nextWord = getNextWord(lineIn);  //get word from front of line
                                tree.insert(nextWord, true);    //inserts word into BSTree
                                lineIn = removeNextWord(lineIn); //update the line w/o word
                        }
                }
                tree.display();  //displays BST
               
                input.close();
        }
       
       
        public static boolean isLetter(char ch) {  //checks if character is a letter
                return ((ch >= 'A') && (ch <= 'Z') ||
                                (ch >= 'a') && (ch <= 'z') ||
                                (ch == '-') || (ch == '\''));  //Allow dash and apostrophe
        }
       
       
        public static String removeNextWord(String s) {
                //Returns the string with the first 'word' removed
                //First, pull all non-letters off front
                while ((s.length() > 0) && (isLetter(s.charAt(0)) == false)) {
                        s = s.substring(1);
                }
                while ((s.length() > 0) && (isLetter(s.charAt(0)) == true)) {
                        s = s.substring(1);
                }
                return s;  //Return the resulting string
        }
       
       
        public static String getNextWord(String s) {
                //Returns first 'word' of the string
                //First, pull all non-letters off front
                String word = "";  //
                while ((s.length() > 0) && (isLetter(s.charAt(0)) == false)) {
                        s = s.substring(1);
                }
                while ((s.length() > 0) && (isLetter(s.charAt(0)) == true)) {
                        word = word + s.charAt(0);  //build up the word
                        s = s.substring(1);        //remove letters from string input 
                }
                return word;  //Return the resulting word string
        }
}

class BTNode {
//define variables
        String word;  //Data item
        int count;    //Count of data items input
        BTNode left;  //Node's left child
        BTNode right;  //Node's right child

//constructor with specific String, right BTNode and left BTNode
        BTNode(String S, BTNode L, BTNode R) {
                word = S;
                count = 1;
                left = L;
                right = R;
        }

//methods
        public void increment() {  //adds 1 to the counter
                count++;
        }
}

class BSTree {
//define variables
        BTNode root;  //first node of tree

//no args constructor
        BSTree() {
                root = null;
        }

//methods
        public BTNode insert(String newWord, boolean lowerCase) {
        //adds new node into the BST if newWord is not there
        //increments its node's counter if it is already there       
                if (lowerCase == true) {
                        newWord = newWord.toLowerCase();  //converts to lowercase
                }
                return insertR(root, newWord);
        }


        private BTNode insertR(BTNode N, String S) {
        //recursive method called by insert method
                if (N.word.compareTo(S) == 0) {
                        N.increment();
                } else {
                        if (N.word.compareTo(S) > 0) {
                                if (N.left == null) {
                                        N.left = new BTNode(S, null, null);
                                } else {
                                        insertR(N.left, S);
                                }
                        } else {
                                if (N.right == null) {
                                        N.right = new BTNode(S, null, null);
                                } else {
                                        insertR(N.right, S);
                                }
                        }
                }
                return root;
        }
       
       
        public int wordCount() {  //returns sum of all occurence counters in all the nodes of BST
                return wCountR(root);
        }
       
       
        public int wCountR(BTNode N) {  //recursive method called by wordCount()
                if (N == null) {
                        return 0;
                } else {
                        return N.count + wCountR(N.left) + wCountR(N.right);
                }
        }
       
       
        public void display() {  //displays the entire BST in a nicely formatted ouput
                inorder(root);  //call recursive inorder method
                wordCount();    //call wordCount method
                System.out.println("|" + wordCount());
        }
       
       
        private void inorder(BTNode N) {  //performs an inorder traversal of BST
                if (N != null) {
                        inorder(N.left);
                        visit(N);
                        inorder(N.right);
                }
        }


        public void visit(BTNode N) {  //visit method
                System.out.println(N.word);
        }
}

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You should check the error stack trace and find out which line of your code that start the exception. And then look closely to those line a find out which object that might have a null value.

Quote:

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what do I have to do to get rid of this error message?

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Could you post the error and its associated stack trace?

Sorry about that. Here it is.

Quote:

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----jGRASP exec: java assignment8.Assignment8

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at assignment8.BSTree.insertR(Assignment8.java:108)
at assignment8.BSTree.insert(Assignment8.java:102)
at assignment8.Assignment8.main(Assignment8.java:20)

----jGRASP wedge2: exit code for process is 1.
----jGRASP: operation complete.

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That would mean the problem lies in one of these three lines.

Code:

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if (N.word.compareTo(S) == 0) {

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In this line I don't think either N or S have a null value

Code:

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return insertR(root, newWord);

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In this line I know the default value for root is null. I think the problem is here. I'm not sure how to fix it.

Code:

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tree.insert(nextWord, true);    //inserts word into BSTree

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nextWord shouldn't be null here since nextWord = getNextWord(lineIn) and lineIn = input.nextLine();

Yes, the root will be null as you explicitly assign null to it in the BSTree constructor. You need to create an instance of the root type before you can use it.

Quote:

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the default value for root is null. I think the problem is here.

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You can check that:

Code:

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if (lowerCase == true) { // btw, if (lowerCase) looks nicer and does the same thing...
    newWord = newWord.toLowerCase();  //converts to lowercase
}
System.out.println("About to insertR() with root=" + root);
return insertR(root, newWord);

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(Or something similar put into the insertR() method.)

If it turns out to be the culprit you should ask yourself "What is insertR() supposed to do when the root is null?". I haven't read the code all that closely, but the intent of that method may be to create a new node based on the string and make that new node the tree's root.

@wsaryada Thanks, I've created an instance of the root type and added to my insert method.

@pbrockway2 Thanks, it was the culprit. I changed my insert method so that it creates a new BTNode when root is null.

I got the code to finally stop displaying the error message. Here is the updated insert method.

Code:

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        public BTNode insert(String newWord, boolean lowerCase) {
        //adds new node into the BST if newWord is not there
        //increments its node's counter if it is already there       
                if (lowerCase == true) {
                        newWord = newWord.toLowerCase();  //converts to lowercase
                }
        if(root == null) {                          //if root is null
                        root = new BTNode(newWord, null, null);  //make new node
                }
                System.out.println("About to insertR() with root = " + root);
                return insertR(root, newWord);
        }

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