Head First sharpen your pencil question

[Max Benjamin]

Hello,
I'm going through Head First Java and I've come to one of the "sharpen your pencil" questions that is giving me a little trouble. It's on page 291 regarding autoboxing:

public class TestBox {

Integer i;
int j;

public static void main(String[] args) {
TestBox t = new TestBox();
t.go();
}

public void go() {
j=i;
System.out.println(j);
System.out.println(i);
}
}

So, yes it does compile but gives a null pointer exception at runtime. Am I understanding the code correctly?

*A new reference variable "t" is created that refers to:
*A new instance of the TestBox class is created
*This new TestBox object has a Integer wrapper object that holds an int "i" variable and TestBox has a int instance variable "j".

Is the null pointer exception comming from "i" not having been set to a particular int(so it's essentially wraping null) and then attempting to set "j" to null? Would the correct term be autoboxing null?

I wish the sharpen your pencil answers were available for the later chapters. So Java has pointers after all?

help appreciated,
Max

[Jeroen T Wenting]

you're trying to unbox null. That might be undefined behaviour though I'd guess it could have been implemented as resolving to 0 in this specific case.

Java has no pointers, at least none you, the programmer, can access.

[abhishek jain]

Hi Max,

There is an obvious compile time error (incompitable types) at line ...
i = j;

I am surprised how come you have compiled your code ??

Plese check whether you have compiled the same source file ?

[Jesper de Jong]

Originally posted by abhishek jain:
There is an obvious compile time error (incompitable types) at line ...

Not if you are using Java 5.0. Check this out: Autoboxing

In Max's case, the Integer i is null. At the line "j = i", Java tries to unbox a null reference. In a pre-5.0 version of Java this is equivalent to:

j = i.intValue();

That throws a NullPointerException if i is null.

[Bryan Incognito]

Max -

I agree with you. I wish that the Sharpen Pencil exercises had answers for later chapters as well!!

So, to your question:
In Chapter 4 (Page 84 in the second edition) of the HeadFirst book, it says that references that you don't initialize in your code by yourself are given a default initialization of null.

So, in your example from the book, Integer i is given a value of Null when you create the TestBox object. When you try to do "j=i;", autoboxing comes into play, which will automatically try to get the int value from Integer i and assign it to int j.

It automatically does something similar to:

j = i.intValue();


But since Integer i is null, you get a null pointer exception.


Java does not have pointers, but only references; if a method is called on a null reference, then you'll get that exception.

I hope that this clears things up.


Bryan