This site is the archived OWASP Foundation Wiki and is no longer accepting Account Requests.
To view the new OWASP Foundation website, please visit https://owasp.org
Catch NullPointerException
From OWASP
This page has been tagged and needs review. Please help OWASP and document the reason for this, see FixME.
This is a Vulnerability. To view all vulnerabilities, please see the Vulnerability Category page.
- This article includes content generously donated to OWASP by
Last revision (mm/dd/yy): 08/31/2015
Vulnerabilities Table of Contents
Description
It is generally a bad practice to catch NullPointerException.
Programmers typically catch NullPointerException under three circumstances:
- The program contains a null pointer dereference. Catching the resulting exception was easier than fixing the underlying problem.
- The program explicitly throws a NullPointerException to signal an error condition.
- The code is part of a test harness that supplies unexpected input to the classes under test.
Of these three circumstances, only the last is acceptable.
Risk Factors
TBD
Examples
The following code mistakenly catches a NullPointerException.
try {
mysteryMethod();
}
catch (NullPointerException npe) {
}
Related Attacks
Related Vulnerabilities
Related Controls
Related Technical Impacts
References
Note: A reference to related CWE or CAPEC article should be added when exists. Eg:
