Question

When I comment out calc1.setOnClickListener(buttonListener); this runs fine, when I allow it to run, it crashes my script. How can I figure out what’s going on? Logcat shows a bunch of red, but I’m not sure how to read it…

package com.example.contactwidget;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.app.Notification;
import android.app.NotificationManager;
import android.app.PendingIntent;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.widget.Button;

public class ContactWidget extends Activity {

    private static final int HELLO_ID = 1;

    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        Button calc1 = (Button) findViewById(R.id.calc_button_1);

        OnClickListener buttonListener = new View.OnClickListener() {
          public void onClick(View v) {

          }
        };

        calc1.setOnClickListener(buttonListener);

        setContentView(R.layout.main);
    }
}

update

Stack trace…

E/AndroidRuntime(  339): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
E/AndroidRuntime(  339): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.example.contactwidget/com.example.contactwidget.ContactWidget}: java.lang.NullPointerException
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2663)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2679)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$2300(ActivityThread.java:125)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2033)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:123)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4627)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:868)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:626)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339): Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at com.example.contactwidget.ContactWidget.onCreate(ContactWidget.java:41)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1047)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2627)
E/AndroidRuntime(  339):    ... 11 more

Answer 1

One thing is that you call setContentView(R.layout.main); at the end.
You have to set the content view as above before referencing any views in a xml layout

 @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        Button calc1 = (Button) findViewById(R.id.calc_button_1);

        OnClickListener buttonListener = new View.OnClickListener() {
          public void onClick(View v) {

          }
        };

        calc1.setOnClickListener(buttonListener);
    }

Since you try to find a view by id without specifying any layout before (with setContentView(R.layout.main);), it returns a null object of calc1 .