Potential problems with getImage()

[colin shuker]

Hi there,

I get my images using...

Image image=new ImageIcon(path).getImage();

But I'm thinking, what happens when the image at the location 'path'
is not there.
Well, I expected the image to be null, but when I tried it:

sun.awt.windows.WImage@15983b7

Which isn't null.

So what happens if I now try to use the image, could I get an exception?
I tried it, and there was no exception, just black where the image should
have been drawn.

Well having black replace the image is fine, but I don't know how I should
handle this situation correctly since it seems no exception is thrown,
so I can't use a try/catch.

Its not that I want it to do anything when there is no image to fetch,
I just don't want it to break if this happens.

Thanks for any input.

[Craig Wood]

This statement

Image image=new ImageIcon(path).getImage();

creates an Image object and loads the image data using a MediaTracker (protected field). To get feedback about the loading process you can use the ImageIcon getImageLoadStatus method. The MediaTracker api comments section has an example that checks for loading status.