NullPointerException on file.getAbsolutePath() but file.exists() returns true

Question

I'm writing an application where I'm using XPath to parse an xml file. Before i call DocumentBuilder's parse method, I create a File from the filename, and check if the file exists. This check returns true, but when i try to parse the file I get a nullpointerexception with this stacktrace:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.io.WinNTFileSystem.normalize(Unknown Source)
    at java.io.WinNTFileSystem.getUserPath(Unknown Source)
    at java.io.WinNTFileSystem.resolve(Unknown Source)
    at java.io.File.getAbsolutePath(Unknown Source)
    at java.io.File.getAbsoluteFile(Unknown Source)
    at java.io.File.toURI(Unknown Source)
    at javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(Unknown Source)
    at FileHandler.parseFile(OriginatorHandler.java:112)
    at Main.main(Main.java:58)

The file is in the same folder as I run the .jar application, and it has the right content. Here is my code:

public Map<String, List<String>> parseFile(String fileName) {

    File file = new File(fileName);
    if (!file.exists()) {
        System.out.println("Couldn't find file [" + fileName + "]");
        System.exit(-1);
    }

    DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
    DocumentBuilder builder = null;
    Document document = null;

    try {
        builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
        //This is where the exception is thrown 
        document = builder.parse(file);

        XPathFactory xPathFactory = XPathFactory.newInstance();
        XPath xPath = xPathFactory.newXPath();

        return getCaGroups(document, xPath);

    } catch (SAXException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (ParserConfigurationException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return null;
}

What can this error come frome? The file exists, it isn't null and is in the folder where I run the .jar file. What else could cause this problem?

Answer 1

Please put the Permission in AndroidManifest.xml

 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

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