Why am i getting NullPointerException when trying to use spinner in actionbar?

Question

I just wanted to add the spinner in the action bar but after a lot of debugging I failed to understand why the getActionView() method is not returning any view(I tested with a view also).Logcat is showing:

`java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'void android.widget.Spinner.setAdapter(android.widget.SpinnerAdapter)' on a null object reference`

This is my Java Code

@Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);


        MenuItem item=menu.findItem(R.id.spinner_item);
        Spinner spinner=(Spinner)item.getActionView();
        // Create an ArrayAdapter using the string array and a default spinner layout
        ArrayAdapter<CharSequence> adapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(this,
                R.array.items,android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item);
        // Specify the layout to use when the list of choices appears
        adapter.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
        // Apply the adapter to the spinner
        spinner.setAdapter(adapter);


        return true;
    }

and this is my res/menu/menu.xml file

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    tools:context="com.example.haha.Main" >

    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_settings"
        android:orderInCategory="100"
        android:title="@string/action_settings"
        app:showAsAction="never"
        />

    <item
        android:id="@+id/spinner_item"
        android:title="@string/sort"
        app:showAsAction="always"
        android:actionLayout="@layout/spinner_main"
        android:checkable="true"
        />

</menu>

And this is layout/spinner_main.xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Spinner 
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:entries="@array/items" 
    android:background="#212121"
    />

I am not asking what is NullPointerException but reason behind this — Nitish Chopra, Aug 05 '15 at 21:07
@JohanShogun as much as I like the question you linked, and as much as many questions are indeed duplicate of that, this one is not. The OP clearly state that they understand what is null, and the question is about the behavior of the object that returns null. — njzk2, Aug 05 '15 at 22:10
@njzk2 The question is "why do I get a null pointer exception" clearly stated in the title. He gets a null pointer exception because the value is null. This is a poorly formed question. — JohanShogun, Aug 06 '15 at 05:28
@JohanShogun try to read it like this: `why is this method call returning null?` — njzk2, Aug 06 '15 at 13:18

Why am i getting NullPointerException when trying to use spinner in actionbar?

0 Answers0