Passing instantiated Pilot class to another class.

[philleonard]

Hi there!

I am trying to keep my code easy to manage and therefore I am trying to pass an instantiated DifferentialPilot class to a seperate class file (trying to instanciate that class file with the same pilot). I'm doing this just so when I change the values in the pilot I only need to do it once. When I pass the pilot, and try and use it I get a null pointer exception (16). My code is as follows;

In the table_map class;

Code: Select all

   public static DifferentialPilot pilot = new DifferentialPilot(1.4f, 6.485f, Motor.B, Motor.A);

   public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
      table_map tm = new table_map();
      tm.map();
      table_nav tn = new table_nav(xTacho, yTacho, xcm, ycm, pilot);
      tn.nav();
   }


and in the table_nav class;

Code: Select all

   DifferentialPilot pilot;
   double xTacho;
   double yTacho;
   double xcm;
   double ycm;
   
   //Constructor for passed variables
   public table_nav(double xTacho, double yTacho, double xcm, double ycm, DifferentialPilot pilot) {
      xTacho = this.xTacho;
      yTacho = this.yTacho;
      xcm = this.xcm;
      ycm = this.ycm;
      pilot = this.pilot;
   }
   
   public void nav() {
      pilot.setTravelSpeed(4);
      pilot.travel(4);      
   }

When passing a class which requires variables to instantiate do I need to add extra things in the constructor?

Thanks guys!

Phil

[gloomyandy]

Hi,
it looks like you do not fully understand the Java scoping rules and the use of the this variable. the statement...
pilot = this.pilot;
will be assigning the current value of the class member pilot (which will be null) to the local variable (which in this case is a parameter) called pilot. I suspect that what you really intended was...
this.pilot = pilot;
which will assign the current value of the local variable/parameter pilot to the class member called pilot. Note that you will also need to change the other statements that are similar to the above...

Andy

PS many people would consider it poor practice to use local variables/parameters that have the same names as class members, certainly if you used different names for the parameters you would have avoided this confusion...

[philleonard]

Thank you Andy Yes I ended up calling the variables a different name to keep things easier, but yes it seems I got confused with; pilot = this.pilot; and this.pilot = pilot; Thanks for clearing that up mate