I was working on my code, busily making changes when suddenly I started to get
the following error...

"Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference"

The weird thing is that this is occurring when calling a static function of a
class. As far as Flex is concerned my class now has a value of null.

The class is called "Global", and it contains a variety of static functions,
static constants and static variables. It's been working fine for months but
suddenly it has broken and I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure out why.

I tried doing a trace to see what's going on ("Setting" us also a class)....

trace(Setting);
trace(Glb);

... returns ...

[class Setting]
null

WTF? How can a class be null? I wondered it I had somehow messed up and had
a line like Global=null, but I tried that and it wouldn't even compile.

Anyone got any ideas?

Could it me the internal load order of the packages? If so how do I change
that to make sure Global loads first?

Help!!!!!

Please!

Doesn't it drive you crazy when you feel like you're working backwards? I
wonder if using the preinitialize event on the application to instantiate the
class would help to ensure its existence upon applicationComplete. Though, if
it's been working for months, gotta wonder if there's a conflict somewhere. I
assume you did a Project > clean.

"xtempore" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:gh5je1$e18$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I was working on my code, busily making changes when suddenly I started to
>get
> the following error...
>
> "Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference"
>
> The weird thing is that this is occurring when calling a static function
> of a
> class. As far as Flex is concerned my class now has a value of null.
>
> The class is called "Global", and it contains a variety of static
> functions,
> static constants and static variables. It's been working fine for months
> but
> suddenly it has broken and I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure out
> why.
>
> I tried doing a trace to see what's going on ("Setting" us also a
> class)....
>
> trace(Setting);
> trace(Glb);
>
> ... returns ...
>
> [class Setting]
> null
>
> WTF? How can a class be null? I wondered it I had somehow messed up and
> had
> a line like Global=null, but I tried that and it wouldn't even compile.
>
> Anyone got any ideas?
>
> Could it me the internal load order of the packages? If so how do I
> change
> that to make sure Global loads first?

A lot of times static methods can't operate on instance variables and vice
versa.

[q]Originally posted by: Newsgroup User

"xtempore" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:gh5je1$e18$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I was working on my code, busily making changes when suddenly I started to
>get
> the following error...
>
> "Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference"
>
> The weird thing is that this is occurring when calling a static function
> of a
> class. As far as Flex is concerned my class now has a value of null.
>
> The class is called "Global", and it contains a variety of static
> functions,
> static constants and static variables. It's been working fine for months
> but
> suddenly it has broken and I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure out
> why.
>
> I tried doing a trace to see what's going on ("Setting" us also a
> class)....
>
> trace(Setting);
> trace(Glb);
>
> ... returns ...
>
> [class Setting]
> null
>
> WTF? How can a class be null? I wondered it I had somehow messed up and
> had
> a line like Global=null, but I tried that and it wouldn't even compile.
>
> Anyone got any ideas?
>
> Could it me the internal load order of the packages? If so how do I
> change
> that to make sure Global loads first?

A lot of times static methods can't operate on instance variables and vice
versa.


[/q]
IMHO, regardless of circumstances
class reference should never bee null, that just sounds plain wrong,from any
angle ,

[Q]Could it me the internal load order of the packages?[/Q]

It could very well be. But I would suspect that it would return undefined
instead of null. Just like if you were to access an RSL before it was loaded.
At any rate, you can change the Build Order by navigating to:

Windows> Preferences...> General> Workspace> Build Order

After much cursing of Flex, I finally realised what my mistake was. Needless
to say a more helpful error would have been nice.

Many of the static vars in Global are set in the initialization. One of them,
which instantiated an object, caused a circular reference back to Global. This
is what caused the problem.

It is still strange though that it did not generate a run-time error in the
initialization code rather than later when I referenced the class.

Thanks to everyone who replied.

myIP,
I have to disagree,with fact that it can be import order ...
IMHO, if in OOP, class reference existence is dependent on an import sequence
that's pretty bad, also not sure how build order in flex is related to Class
refference not being available,unlees there are more than one swf projects
... its gotta be something else ,

I never disagreed that it could of been the build order. If the OP was using
SWCs in the form of RSLs (Runtime Shared Libraries) or SWFs (for bootstrapping
a Flex app) then build order could very well have been a culprit, as you stated
in your last post.