This article is intended for amateur programmers, and/or people new to Object Oriented programming.
“Object reference not set to an instance of an object” is probably the most common run-time exception message spat-out by the .Net framework, and most programmers will probably encounter this more often than any other framework exception type.
This exception, or more specifically a “System.NullReferenceException” is always caused when code tries to access an instance of any object, when the object has not yet been created and/or returned via a constructor, or some method.
Back to basics.
Object oriented programming is a form of programming wherein things called “Objects” are given “responsibility” for data, and for various operations. Each Object has a kind of blueprint, called a “Class”, as shown in the following code:
public class Chair
{
public Chair() { }
public void Sit() { }
}
In order to use this object, you must create an “instance” of it, so to do that with the above class:
Chair myChair;
myChair = new Chair();
myChair.Sit();
1) Memory Allocation
This line of code designates some memory to be used by your program for holding a “Chair” object.
Think of this line, like setting aside some wood and nails to build a real chair.
2) Constructing your object
This line of code creates an “Instance” of a “Chair” class, and assigns it to the variable “myChair” so that we may use it. To continue the above analogy, this is akin to looking at the blueprints for a chair, and using the assigned resources of wood & nails (Memory, in the case of our program) and actually creating the Chair.
3) Using the Object
Now that we have an actual chair object, we can sit on it.
If, however, you forget to include the line:
Or, somehow your “myChair” object gets set to null before the myChair.Sit();
method-call, then a
System.NullReferenceException will be thrown.
If your object is unassigned (or null) you’re essentially tying to “Sit()” on nothing, and your program will fall on its arse.
