Java, java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException with Digester parser

Question

I've a Java app, working with Lucene and Apache commons Digester to parse a xml collection. After the first item is parsed, I get this error... What does it mean ?

Feb 24, 2011 5:53:16 PM org.apache.commons.digester.Digester endElement
SEVERE: End event threw exception
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.commons.beanutils.MethodUtils.invokeMethod(MethodUtils.java:216)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.SetNextRule.end(SetNextRule.java:220)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Rule.end(Rule.java:257)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.endElement(Digester.java:1345)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.endElement(AbstractSAXParser.java:601)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanEndElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1782)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:2938)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:648)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:511)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:808)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:737)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:119)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1205)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:522)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1871)
    at CollectionIndexer.main(CollectionIndexer.java:103)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at CollectionIndexer.addDocument(CollectionIndexer.java:41)
    ... 20 more
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.createSAXException(Digester.java:3363)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.createSAXException(Digester.java:3389)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.endElement(Digester.java:1348)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.endElement(AbstractSAXParser.java:601)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanEndElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1782)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:2938)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:648)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:511)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:808)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:737)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:119)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1205)
    at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:522)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1871)
    at CollectionIndexer.main(CollectionIndexer.java:103)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at CollectionIndexer.addDocument(CollectionIndexer.java:41)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.commons.beanutils.MethodUtils.invokeMethod(MethodUtils.java:216)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.SetNextRule.end(SetNextRule.java:220)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Rule.end(Rule.java:257)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.endElement(Digester.java:1345)
    ... 12 more

Answer 1

Looks pretty clear to me:

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at CollectionIndexer.addDocument(CollectionIndexer.java:41)

Your problem is right there. You need to more defensive in your code to protect against null references.

P.S. It's very bad practice to put your code into the default package. You should always put classes into an explicit package.