Failing to create SearchView

Question

I am trying to create a SearchView for one of my 4 MenuItems, that are being created programmatically, however I am getting a NPE when I use xml for my SearchView.

xml/search_view.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SearchView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/simpleSearchView"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content">
</SearchView>

Java

   @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);

        MenuItem searchItem = menu.add(Menu.NONE, R.id.search_card, 1, R.string.search_card);
        searchItem.setIcon(R.drawable.search);
        searchItem.setShowAsAction(MenuItem.SHOW_AS_ACTION_ALWAYS);

        SearchView searchView = findViewById(R.id.simpleSearchView);
        searchItem.setActionView(searchView);
        if (searchView != null) {
            searchView.setOnQueryTextListener(new SearchView.OnQueryTextListener() {
                @Override
                public boolean onQueryTextSubmit(String s) {
                    return true;
                }

                @Override
                public boolean onQueryTextChange(String s) {
                    return false;
                }
            });
        } else {
            // enters here
        }

        MenuItem trashCardItem = menu.add(Menu.NONE, R.id.delete_card, 2, R.string.delete_card);
        ...
    }

How can I resolve this so I can have one of my MenuItems act as a SearchView?

Answer 1

The searchItem.setActionView() method needs a view as input. In your case, you must inflate your layout instead of calling findViewById(R.id.simpleSearchView) method. So change

SearchView searchView = findViewById(R.id.simpleSearchView);

to

SearchView searchView = (SearchView) LayoutInflater.from(this).inflate(R.layout.search_view, null);

will fix the problem.

BTW, NPE is not related to this part of your code. Check the stack trace to find source of exception.