Why am I getting errors when getting EditText content from my custom dialog?

Question

I have a custom dialog with an EditText and Button in it. In my dialog neutral button's onClick method, I want to make a new string from what has been typed into the EditText.

What I am doing is inflating a menu when the menu button is pressed. The menu buttons show AlertDialogs with 2 options. When an option is selected in the AlertDialog, another one is created which has an EditText in it asking for a name. The null pointer error comes when I attempt "String name = nameOfEditText.getText().toString();"

here is the code

    // creation of the dialog
    Builder mBuilder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater)                 this.getSystemService(LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
View layout= inflater.inflate(R.layout.custom_dialog, (ViewGroup) findViewById(R.id.RelativeLayout1));

mBuilder.setNeutralButton("Add", new AddOnClickListener());
mBuilder.setView(layout);
Dialog mDialog = mBuilder.create();
mDialog.show();

    nameOfLocalEditText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.name);

    Button dialogButton = (Button) mDialog.findViewById(R.id.button1);
dialogButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
        @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
            Intent imp = new Intent();
            imp.setType("file/*");
        imp.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
        imp.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_OPENABLE);
        startActivityForResult(imp, 0);
            }
});

Now here is the AddOnClickListener() method. nameOfLocalEditText is an EditText local to the class containing these methods.

    private final class AddOnClickListener implements DialogInterface.OnClickListener {
    public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
        String s = nameOfLocalEditText.getText().toString();
    }
}

Can anyone tell me why my app force closes at the point of making the String s?

This is the xml for custom_dialog

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:id="@+id/RelativeLayout1"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:orientation="vertical" >

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/button1"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
            android:layout_marginTop="16dp"
            android:text="Get File" />

        <EditText
            android:id="@+id/editText1"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_below="@+id/button1"
            android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
            android:layout_marginTop="18dp"
            android:ems="10" >

        <requestFocus />
        </EditText>
    </RelativeLayout>

This is the logcat error message

   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595): java.lang.NullPointerException
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595): at         com.akonwi.listSyllabi.ListSyllabiActivity$AddOnClickListener.onClick(ListSyllabiActivity.ja va:145)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at com.android.internal.app.AlertController$ButtonHandler.handleMessage(AlertController.java:166)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:137)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4424)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:511)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:784)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:551)
   05-24 23:27:27.166: E/AndroidRuntime(595):   at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Answer 1

Define EditText after your mDialog.show(); statement. and use your Dialog object to find your EditText id like below :

mBuilder.setView(layout);
Dialog mDialog = mBuilder.create();
mDialog.show();

nameOfLocalEditText = (EditText) mDialog.findViewById(R.id.name);

Now you should be able to use EditText.

Instead of Alert Dialog you can use this Code as I used in my project :

    Dialog myDialog;
myDialog = new Dialog(Activity_ShoppingList.this);
            myDialog.requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_LEFT_ICON);
            myDialog.setContentView(R.layout.custom_dialog);
            myDialog.setTitle("Endre/Slett ingrediens");
            myDialog.setCancelable(true);
            myDialog.setFeatureDrawableResource(Window.FEATURE_LEFT_ICON, R.drawable.edit);
            myDialog.show();

            edtName = (EditText)myDialog.findViewById(R.id.edtname);
            edtqty = (EditText)myDialog.findViewById(R.id.edtqty);
            edtType = (EditText)myDialog.findViewById(R.id.edtType);

            edtName.setText(rName);
            edtqty.setText(rAmm);
            edtType.setText(rType);


             btnNew = (Button) myDialog.findViewById(R.id.btnDelete);
            btnNew.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

                @Override
                public void onClick(View v) {


                        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

                        myDbHelper.DeleteSelDataBase(rName);
                        new AsyncButtonClk().execute(); 
                        myDialog.dismiss();
                    //Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Row Id : " + Global.shopping_name.get(ARG2) , Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                    }



            });

Answer 2

The same [this question][1]

Try this

  nameOfLocalEditText = (EditText)layout.findViewById(R.id.name);
  layout.addView(nameOfLocalEditText);

Update: refer to [this link][2] you can try

  final Dialog dialog = new Dialog(context);
  dialog.setContentView(R.layout.custom);

Use dialog.setContentView instead of inflate layout should work.

Right now my preference is to use the AlertDialog so I can have the neutral button. I already have a button in my custom dialog to send the user to find a file. I want the neutral button to take the data from the AlertDialog components

This code worked for me:

 // creation of the dialog
    Builder mBuilder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
    LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) this.getSystemService(LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
    View layout = inflater.inflate(R.layout.custom_dialog,
            (ViewGroup) findViewById(R.id.RelativeLayout1));

    mBuilder.setNeutralButton("Add", new AddOnClickListener());
    mBuilder.setView(layout);
    Dialog mDialog = mBuilder.create();
    mDialog.show();

    nameOfLocalEditText = (EditText) layout.findViewById(R.id.editText1);

    Button dialogButton = (Button) layout.findViewById(R.id.button1);
    dialogButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View v) {
            Intent imp = new Intent();
            imp.setType("file/*");
            imp.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
            imp.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_OPENABLE);
            startActivityForResult(imp, 0);
        }
    });

   private final class AddOnClickListener implements DialogInterface.OnClickListener {
    public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
        String s = nameOfLocalEditText.getText().toString();
        Log.d(TAG, s);
    }
}