i am getting java.lang.NullPointerException in Automation testing selenium

Question

i am getting java.lang.NullPointerException error at following line in both files Base file and HomePage file at following line code

driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS); and driver.get("https://www.google.com");

Base class public class Base {

    public WebDriver driver ;

    public WebDriver InitializeDriver() throws IOException
    {
        Properties Prop =new Properties();

        FileInputStream fis=new FileInputStream("C:\\Users\\Raj\\eclipse-workspace\\MavenSelenium\\src\\main\\java\\FirstMaven\\MavenSelenium\\Data.properties");

        Prop.load(fis);
        String browsername = Prop.getProperty("browser");

        if (browsername=="Chrome")
        {
            System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\Users\\Raj\\eclipse-workspace\\Work\\chromedriver.exe");
            driver=new ChromeDriver();
        }
        else if (browsername=="Firefox")
        {
           System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\Users\\Raj\\eclipse-workspace\\Work\\geckodriver.exe");
           driver=new FirefoxDriver();  
        }
        else if(browsername=="IE")
        {
            System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver", "C:\\Users\\Raj\\eclipse-workspace\\Work\\IEDriverServer.exe");
            driver=new InternetExplorerDriver();
        }
        driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
        return driver;
    }

}

and HomePAge Class

public class HomePage extends Base{

@Test
public void Navigation() throws IOException
{

driver=InitializeDriver();
driver.get("https://www.google.com");

}   

}

Answer 1

A stacktrace is always helpful here but I was able to figure out what was wrong.

Based on the code you are getting a NPE because driver is never set. This is because browsername=="Chrome" should be browsername.equals("Chrome") or "Chrome".equals(browsername).

== compares the reference of the object where as .equals compares equality.