NullPointerException is received in workflow function

One of the possible causes would be that the workflow script is calling a variable which is not initialized.

For example, the code fragment below if used in workflow scripts will throw a NullPointerException


//var myOutput = createOtherOut("/debug.txt");
// variable myOutput is not initialized and will cause NullPointerException if called
myOutput.writeln("this is a debugging statement");
// myOutput.save("/debug.txt")


Above code would generate exception stack trace that looks similar to the one shown below

2011-01-31 12:20:06,941 [WorkflowEventProcessorEventId72304] ERROR com.ibm.ccd.common.error.AustinException - CWPCM0002E:Generic error / Exception: Generic Error, Exception:java.lang.NullPointerException
at
WPCSUCCESS12964935105740.ScriptFunction__OUT(WPCSUCCESS12964935105740.java:1039)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:79)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:618)
at com.ibm.ccd.common.interpreter.engine.Script.runFunction(Script.java:550)
at com.ibm.ccd.workflow.common.events.AbstractWorkflowEvent.runScriptFunction(AbstractWorkflowEvent.java:624)
at com.ibm.ccd.workflow.common.events.EndStepEvent.runOutOrTimeoutScript(EndStepEvent.java:806)
at com.ibm.ccd.workflow.common.events.EndStepEvent.runStepScript(EndStepEvent.java:950)
at com.ibm.ccd.workflow.common.events.AbstractWorkflowEvent.runStepScriptInTX(AbstractWorkflowEvent.java:2018)
at com.ibm.ccd.workflow.common.events.AbstractWorkflowEvent.processFullEventWithTransactions(AbstractWorkflowEvent.java:1964)
at com.ibm.ccd.workflow.common.WorkflowRunnable.processWorkflowEventDbRecord(WorkflowRunnable.java:149)
at com.ibm.ccd.workflow.common.WorkflowRunnable.run(WorkflowRunnable.java:93)
at EDU.oswego.cs.dl.util.concurrent.PooledExecutor$Worker.run(PooledExecutor.java:732)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:811)

To solve the NullPointerException error, simply remove or comment out all the scripting operations referencing writer object that is not initialized