How come making my own package gives me issues?

Question

I am learning the basics of programming games in Java. For some reason every single time I created a program with an ImageIcon, I would get an error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at javax.swing.ImageIcon.<init>(Unknown Source)
at game.Picture.<init>(Picture.java:14)
at game.Main.<init>(Main.java:11)
at game.Main.main(Main.java:7)

After some experimenting, I found out that when I use the default package that eclipse creates, the program works fine. However when I create my own package, the program returns an error.

Below I have two identical programs, the only difference is one uses the default package and one uses my own package called "game"

enter image description here

I included a view of the package explorer in case it's a problem with the location of ship.png

I think it is in the location. Try using /raw/ship.png instead of raw/ship.png. In the game example, it will look for /game/raw/ship.png. — Bruce Martin, Jul 13 '13 at 05:01
*"Thanks for all the help, -Steven"* Don't include noise in questions. — Andrew Thompson, Jul 13 '13 at 05:17
@Steven : Try performing the steps cited in this [answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/9278270/1057230) — nIcE cOw, Jul 13 '13 at 13:57

Bruce Martin · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-24T01:06:17.563

2

I think it is in the location, you should use "/raw/ship.png" instead of "raw/ship.png"

try:

   ImageIcon il = new ImageIcon(this.getClass()
                .getResource("/raw/ship.png");

In the current code "raw/ship.png" will be translated by Java to Package_Name/raw/ship.png which in the example below is game/raw/ship.png. Obviously if the code is run from the default package (package_name=""), Package_Name/raw/ship.png becomes /raw/ship.png and it works.

package game;

...

   ImageIcon il = new ImageIcon(this.getClass()
                .getResource("raw/ship.png");

edited Jul 24 '13 at 01:06

answered Jul 13 '13 at 07:49

Bruce Martin

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This doesn't compile. You mean `.getResource("/raw/ship.png"));` – JB Nizet Jul 13 '13 at 07:51

How come making my own package gives me issues?

1 Answers1