CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidfirebasefirebase-realtime-database
Quinn Dumala
Quinn Dumala

Reputation: 148

Delete an item from firebase without crashing the app

I'm new to android and I've been playing around with this sample app from firebase. I want to add a delete button on PostDetailActivity which deletes the current post being viewed from the database by setting the DatabaseReference mPostReference to null. However this causes a null pointer exception to a ValueEventListener added to mPostReference, causing the app to crash.

    // Get post key from intent
    mPostKey = getIntent().getStringExtra(EXTRA_POST_KEY);
    if (mPostKey == null) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Must pass EXTRA_POST_KEY");
    }

    // Initialize Database
    mPostReference = FirebaseDatabase.getInstance().getReference()
            .child("posts").child(mPostKey);

    ValueEventListener postListener = new ValueEventListener() {
        @Override
        public void onDataChange(DataSnapshot dataSnapshot) {
            // Get Post object and use the values to update the UI
            Post post = dataSnapshot.getValue(Post.class);
            // Text Views in activity
            mAuthorView.setText(post.author);
            mTitleView.setText(post.title);
            mBodyView.setText(post.body);
        }

        @Override
        public void onCancelled(DatabaseError databaseError) {
            // Getting Post failed, log a message
            Log.w(TAG, "loadPost:onCancelled", databaseError.toException());
            // [START_EXCLUDE]
            Toast.makeText(PostDetailActivity.this, "Failed to load post.",
                    Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            // [END_EXCLUDE]
        }
    };
    mPostReference.addValueEventListener(postListener);

   //delete button clicked
   deleteButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
        mPostReference.setValue(null);
   }

Is there a way to keep the app from crashing if mPostReference has been deleted or set to null? Are there better ways in implementing a delete button? Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Here's the log

FATAL EXCEPTION: main
   Process: com.google.firebase.quickstart.database, PID: 2861
   java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to read from field 'java.lang.String com.google.firebase.quickstart.database.models.Post.author' on a null object reference
   at com.google.firebase.quickstart.database.PostDetailActivity$1.onDataChange(PostDetailActivity.java:93)
   at com.google.android.gms.internal.zzbmz.zza(Unknown Source)
   at com.google.android.gms.internal.zzbnz.zzYj(Unknown Source)
   at com.google.android.gms.internal.zzboc$1.run(Unknown Source)
   at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:739)
   at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
   at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:145)
   at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6145)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
   at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1399)
   at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1194)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1630

Answers (1)

Wilik
Wilik

Reputation: 7720

You just need to add an if statement to check if the dataSnapshot has a value or null

public void onDataChange(DataSnapshot dataSnapshot) {
    if (dataSnapshot.exists()) {
        // Get Post object and use the values to update the UI
        Post post = dataSnapshot.getValue(Post.class);
        // Text Views in activity
        mAuthorView.setText(post.author);
        mTitleView.setText(post.title);
        mBodyView.setText(post.body);
    }
}

Upvotes: 4

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