调用Method.invoke时获取java.lang.NullPointerException

Question

I'm following this tutorial on Java annotaitons and implemented the Test annotation as shown there. But when running the code I get the following output.

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:616)
    at TestAnnotationParser.parse(Demo.java:24)
    at Demo.main(Demo.java:51)
Passed:0   Fail:1

Following is my code. Can someone point out what I have got wrong?

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;

@Target(ElementType.METHOD)
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@interface Test {
    Class expected();
}

class TestAnnotationParser {
    public void parse(Class<?> clazz) throws Exception {
        Method[] methods = clazz.getMethods();
        int pass = 0;
        int fail = 0;

        for (Method method : methods) {
            if (method.isAnnotationPresent(Test.class)) {
                Test test = method.getAnnotation(Test.class);
                Class expected = test.expected();
                try {
                    method.invoke(null);
                    pass++;
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    if (Exception.class != expected) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                        fail++;
                    } else {
                        pass++;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        System.out.println("Passed:" + pass + "   Fail:" + fail);
    }
}

class MyTest {

    @Test(expected = RuntimeException.class)
    public void testBlah() {
    }
}

public class Demo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        TestAnnotationParser parser = new TestAnnotationParser();
        try {
            parser.parse(MyTest.class);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

The parameter that you pass to invoke must be an object on which the method is invoked, unless the method is static . What you did through reflection is equivalent to this:

MyTest obj = null;
obj.testBlah();

Naturally, there's an NPE. To fix this problem, pass an object on which to invoke the method, or make the method static .

Here is one way to make a fix:

public <T> void parse(Class<T> clazz, T obj) throws Exception {
    Method[] methods = clazz.getMethods();
    int pass = 0;
    int fail = 0;

    for (Method method : methods) {
        if (method.isAnnotationPresent(Test.class)) {
            Test test = method.getAnnotation(Test.class);
            Class expected = test.expected();
            try {
                method.invoke(obj);
                pass++;
            } catch (Exception e) {
                if (Exception.class != expected) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                    fail++;
                } else {
                    pass++;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    System.out.println("Passed:" + pass + "   Fail:" + fail);
}

...

parser.parse(MyTest.class, new MyTest());

Demo on ideone .

Answer 2

The Method#invoke has the answer to your question:

public Object invoke(Object obj,
            Object... args)
              throws IllegalAccessException,
                     IllegalArgumentException,
                     InvocationTargetException

Throws: NullPointerException - if the specified object is null and the method is an instance method.

Answer 3

This issue is here:

method.invoke(null);

This method's first parameter is the object to invoke the method on. This is the dynamic (reflection) equivalent of something like this:

Object foo = null;
foo.toString();

Of course we would expect this code to give a NullPointerException because foo is null .

Answer 4

The problem is that you are passing a null target object to method.invoke(object) method. The target object should not be null, else a nullpointerexception is expected.

The invoke method has below usages:

Method.invoke(targetObject, args1, args2, args3...); where args1, args2, args3 etc are argument to the method being invoked.