null pointer..

[jyotsana dang]

wrote this code.. for executing the search..
<%!
Connection con=null;
java.sql.Statement stmt=null;
ResultSet rs=null;
%>
<%
try
{
Class.forName("sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver");
con = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc dbc:mech_iit");
stmt = con.createStatement();
String fname=request.getParameter("fname").toUpperCase();
String lname=request.getParameter("lname").toUpperCase();
String mainquery="";
String subquery="";

if(!fname.trim().equals(""))
subquery="select upper(fname) from login where fname like '%"+fname+"%'";

System.out.println("select upper(fname) from login where fname like '%"+fname+"%'");
if(!lname.trim().equals(""))
{

if(subquery.length()>10)
{
subquery=subquery+"and";
}
subquery=subquery+"select uppper(lname) from login where lname like '%"+lname+"%'";
System.out.println(subquery+"select uppper(lname) from login where lname like '%"+lname+"%'");
}
mainquery="select fname,lname from login where "+subquery+"";


while(rs.next())
{
fname = rs.getString("fname");
lname = rs.getString("lname");
%>
<table border="1" width="400">
<tr><td><%=fname %></td>
<td><%=lname %></td>
</tr>
<%
}


}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println(e);
}
%>
</table>
getting a null pointer exception
why so?? can anyone explain..
thanks

[Mani Ram]

Could you please post the exception trace?

[Prakash Dwivedi]

Hi,
this is why you are getting null pointer exception
rs = null;
while(rs.next())

between these two lines you need to initialize resultset i.e. rs

may be something like this:
rs = stmt.executeQuery(mainquery);

[Kishore Dandu]

Also it is possible that this is very inefficient in the long run.
Its better to move your scriplet code to a differnt include file(so that it can be easily maintained), and that will improve the readability of the JSP.
Other suggestion is to move the database processing to the server side and just pass the result set in a well defined collection format after processing it on the server side.
Dan.

[Bear Bibeault]

Other suggestion is to move the database processing to the server side

Huh? All Java code in a JSP or servlet is server-side code.
If you mean that it'd be best to abstract the code that performs the database access into a Model-component object, then that would make sense.

[Kishore Dandu]

oops!!
My bad, I mean using something like DAO pattern and create some kind of abstraction.
Damn it.
Dan.

[jyotsana dang]

thanks a tonne everyone for ur suggestions and special thanks to praful for pointing out that error.
now iam geting an sql exception in my select statement..wonder why?? will try to solve that..
anyways..thanks ..
select fname from login where fname like '%s%'
java.sql.SQLException: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Incorrect
syntax near the keyword 'select'.
[ February 23, 2004: Message edited by: jyotsana dang ]

[jyotsana dang]

gotit working !!