[PDFBOX-1412] NullPointerException when getting fields from a PDF file

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Critical
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 1.7.1, 1.8.2
• Fix Version/s: 1.8.3, 2.0.0
• Component/s: AcroForm
• Environment: I encountered this problem while running Junit tests in Netbeans on my dev machine and while running web apps in Tomcat7 on Ubuntu 11.10.
• Assignee: Andreas Lehmkühler
• Reporter: Wayne Chan
• Created: 12/Sep/12 16:02
• Updated: 30/Nov/13 17:02
• Resolved: 27/Oct/13 18:16

Description

I am getting a NullPointerException thrown from PDField.java line 540. The problem is that the code calls COSArray.getObject on line 539, which can return a NULL. Line 540 uses the returned value without first checking for NULL, thus throwing NPE when the value is NULL. The following is the stack trace:

java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.interactive.form.PDField.getKids(PDField.java:540)
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.interactive.form.PDFieldFactory.isButton(PDFieldFactory.java:159)
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.interactive.form.PDFieldFactory.createField(PDFieldFactory.java:68)
at org.apache.pdfbox.pdmodel.interactive.form.PDAcroForm.getFields(PDAcroForm.java:203)
...