Beginner Applet question -- Not sure why I get an error?

[Hans Hovan]

Just started learning Applet stuff. For practice I'm just trying to have a TextField and a Label. The user types whatever in the TextField then hits enter and the Label displays what the user entered. The program compiles, the Applet starts up, but when I enter something in the TextField and hit enter I get an error. Probably something simple am missing but I don't see it. Thanks for any help.

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

public class AppletTest extends JApplet
{
	private JTextField testField;
	private JLabel testLabel;

	public void init()
	{
		Container content = getContentPane();
		content.setLayout(new BorderLayout());

		JTextField testField = new JTextField("Enter Text Here");
		JLabel testLabel = new JLabel("???");

		content.add(testField, BorderLayout.NORTH);
		content.add(testLabel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

		testField.addActionListener(new testListener());

		setSize(200, 200);
	}

	private class testListener implements ActionListener
	{
		public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
		{
			String input = testField.getText();
			testLabel.setText("Your input was: " + input);
		}
	}
}

The error that displays in the command prompt:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-1" java.lang.NullPointerException at AppletTest$testListener.actionPerformed(AppletTest.java:30) at javax.swing.JTextField.fireActionPerformed(JTextField.java:508) at javax.swing.JTextField.postActionEvent(JTextField.java:721) at javax.swing.JTextField$NotifyAction.actionPerformed(JTextField.java:836) at javax.swing.SwingUtilities.notifyAction(SwingUtilities.java:1664) at javax.swing.JComponent.processKeyBinding(JComponent.java:2879) at javax.swing.JComponent.processKeyBindings(JComponent.java:2926) at javax.swing.JComponent.processKeyEvent(JComponent.java:2842) at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Component.java:6282) at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Container.java:2229) at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:4861) at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2287) at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4687) at java.awt.KeyboardFocusManager.redispatchEvent(KeyboardFocusManager.java:1895) at java.awt.DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.dispatchKeyEvent(DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.java:762) at java.awt.DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.preDispatchKeyEvent(DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.java:1027) at java.awt.DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.typeAheadAssertions(DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.java:899) at java.awt.DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.dispatchEvent(DefaultKeyboardFocusManager.java:727) at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:4731) at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2287) at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4687) at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:729) at java.awt.EventQueue.access$200(EventQueue.java:103) at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:688) at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:686) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.security.ProtectionDomain$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76) at java.security.ProtectionDomain$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:87) at java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:702) at java.awt.EventQueue$4.run(EventQueue.java:700) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.security.ProtectionDomain$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76) at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:699) at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:242) at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:161) at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:150) at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:146) at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:138) at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:91)

[Hans Hovan]

Oh, I figured it out. Needed to get rid of the JTextField and JLabel in the init() method so that I had:

testField = new JTextField("Enter Text Here");
testLabel = new JLabel("???");

Can someone explain to me why that was causing the error? Was it a scope issue where I was making a new object that had no reference to the instance variable and thus the testListener was trying to access a null object?

Thanks again.

[Maneesh Godbole]

You declare

    private JTextField testField;  
    private JLabel testLabel;  

and then inside your init()

        JTextField testField = new JTextField("Enter Text Here");  
        JLabel testLabel = new JLabel("???");  

Since you used JTextField testField = the newly created instance is not assigned to the one you declared on line 1. Effectively it is still null. Thus the null pointer exception

[Campbell Ritchie]

Why are you writing applets? Most of us regard them as obsolete.