null pointer exception apache poi

Question

hi we\'ve been reading xls and xlsx file using apache poi ing our java program, the problem is we are getting null pointer exception with two reasons.. the first 1 is the bl

Answer 1

This my way to avoid Cell NullPoiterException.
Can you try it. Good luck!

/**
     * Get string value of {@link Cell} object
     * 
     * @param cell
     *          {@link Cell} object
     * @return String value of {@link Cell} object
     */
    private static String getCellValueString(Cell cell) {
        String value="";
        if(cell!=null) {
            switch(cell.getCellType()){
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_BOOLEAN:
                    value=String.valueOf(cell.getBooleanCellValue());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_NUMERIC:
                    value=BigDecimal.valueOf(
                        cell.getNumericCellValue()).toPlainString();
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_STRING:
                    value=String.valueOf(cell.getStringCellValue());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_FORMULA:
                    value=String.valueOf(cell.getCellFormula());
                    break;
                case Cell.CELL_TYPE_BLANK:
                    value="";
                    break;
            }
        } else {
            logger.error("Cell is null");
        }
        return value.trim();
    }

Answer 2

The issue is that you never test if the cell is null!

if (cell == null)
{
   System.out.println("Cell is Empty in Column:" + cols);

} else if (cell.getCellType() == HSSFCell.CELL_TYPE_STRING)
{
   //code
}

As a general matter, you should be careful while handling Cell.getCellType() function, since an empty cell could be either null or be a CELL_TYPE_BLANK.