Java NullPointerException when traversing a non-null recordset

Question

I am running a query on Sybase ASE that produces a ResultSet that I then traverse and write the contents out to a file. Sometimes, this will throw a NullPointerException, stating that the ResultSet is null. However, it will do this after printing out one or two records. Other times, with the same exact input, I will receive no errors.

I have been unable to consistently produce this error. The error message is pointing to a line:

output.print(rs.getString(1));

It appears to happen when the query takes a little longer to run, for some reason. The recordset returns thus far have been very small (4 to 7 records). Sometimes I'll have to run the app 3 or 4 times, then the errors will just stop, as though the query was getting "warmed up". I've run the query manually and there doesn't appear to be any performance problems.

Thanks again!

Answer 1

Are you sure it's the ResultSet that's null, and not the rs.getString(1)?

This is a typical Java query

preparedStatement.setLong(1, primaryKey);
ResultSet rs = preparedStatement.executeQuery();
while (rs.next())
{
  String foo = rs.getString(1);
  if (foo != null)
    ...
}