Why am I getting null as a value of array? [duplic

Question

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• Why are my fields initialized to null or to the default value of zero when I've declared and initialized them in my class' constructor? 4 answers

I have a class Hra1, which defines the rules of a game (game=hra). The problem is, that I am getting a null value, e.g. poleMinci==null, despite the array poleMinci is created in the constructor. In other words, the player's move method always returns false.

constructor:

public Hra1()
{
    Mince [] poleMinci = new Mince[20];
    poleMinci[0] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[3] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[4] = new Mince("zlatá", "coin_gold.png");
    poleMinci[8] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[10] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[12] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
}

player's move method:

public boolean tahHrace(Tah tah){
    if (poleMinci != null){
        int odkud = tah.getZPozice();
        int kam = tah.getNaPozici();
        boolean kamPrazdne;
        if (poleMinci [kam] != null) 
            kamPrazdne = false;
            else 
            kamPrazdne = true;

        if (kam > odkud && poleMinci [odkud] != null && kamPrazdne == true){
            poleMinci [kam] = poleMinci [odkud];
            poleMinci [odkud] = null;
            System.out.println("hráč táhl z pozice "+tah.getZPozice()
            + " na pozici "+tah.getNaPozici());
            return true;
        }
        else
             return false;

    }
    else
    return false;
}

Answer 1

You are shadowing a variable:

public Hra1()
{
    // the following variable's *scope* is inside of this constructor only
    // outside of the constructor, the local variable below doesn't exist.
    Mince [] poleMinci = new Mince[20]; 

    poleMinci[0] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[3] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[4] = new Mince("zlatá", "coin_gold.png");
    poleMinci[8] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[10] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[12] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
}

In that constructor, since poleMinci was declared inside of the constructor, it is visible only inside of the constructor. If you have a variable of the same name in the class it will be null. To fix this, don't re-declare the variable locally. Do:

public Hra1()
{

    // Mince [] poleMinci = new Mince[20]; // **** not this ****
    poleMinci = new Mince[20]; // **** but this. note the difference? ****

    poleMinci[0] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[3] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[4] = new Mince("zlatá", "coin_gold.png");
    poleMinci[8] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[10] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
    poleMinci[12] = new Mince("stříbrná", "coin.png");
}

For more on this problem, check out Variable Shadowing. Most IDE's either will warn you that you might be doing this, or have a setting that will allow them to do this. I use Eclipse and have set my IDE to warn me. You might wish to do this too.