Question

I have two classes. MetaDataExtractor(GUI) and MetaData.

MetaData has the method which extracts the metadata from an image. MetaDataExtractor is designed to display the data in a JTextPane. (Please excuse the class names. I know it’s a little confusing. I’m fairly new to Java).

MetaDataExtractor:

LongitudeField.setText("" + MetaDataTags.getLongitude());

MetaData:

public String getLongitude() {
    try {
        Metadata metadata = ImageMetadataReader.readMetadata(jpegFile);
        if (metadata.containsDirectory(GpsDirectory.class)) {
            GpsDirectory gpsDir = (GpsDirectory) metadata.getDirectory(GpsDirectory.class);
            GpsDescriptor gpsDesc = new GpsDescriptor(gpsDir);
            String Longitude = "" + gpsDesc.getGpsLongitudeDescription();

        }
    } catch (ImageProcessingException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(MetaData.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
        System.out.println("Error 1");
    } catch (IOException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(MetaData.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
        System.out.println("Error 2");
    }        
    return longitude;
}

If I set the longitude to be displayed in the JTextPane, it returns “null”. If however, I set it to print out on the command line, it prints the longitude fine?

Please excuse me if its a simple solution. I’m still getting to grips with Java.

Answer 1

Java is case sensitive and declare firstly your variable outside of try & catch statement.

Use a IDE like Eclipse to reduce syntax errors like these.

so you should have :

public String getLongitude() {
    String longitudeDesc ="";
    try {
        Metadata metadata = ImageMetadataReader.readMetadata(jpegFile);
        if (metadata.containsDirectory(GpsDirectory.class)) {
            GpsDirectory gpsDir = (GpsDirectory) metadata.getDirectory(GpsDirectory.class);
            GpsDescriptor gpsDesc = new GpsDescriptor(gpsDir);
            longitudeDesc = "" + gpsDesc.getGpsLongitudeDescription();

        }
    } catch (ImageProcessingException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(MetaData.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
        System.out.println("Error 1");
    } catch (IOException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger(MetaData.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
        System.out.println("Error 2");
    }        
    return longitudeDesc ;
}