problem trying to create a simple class

Question

Hi all, I'm getting an error message when I try to run the following class. The error message is: "object reference not set to an instance of an object." This error message is referring to variable "a" below when I try to increment it in the "for" statement "a++". Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thanks. Mike using System; using System.IO; namespace HEIAN_TRANSFER { /// /// Summary description for HeianFiles. /// This returns an array of file names in a specific folder. /// public class HeianFiles { private string[] pathNames; private string[] theFile; public string[] fileNames; public HeianFiles() { } public string[] GetFiles(string thePath) { int spot; pathNames = Directory.GetFiles(thePath); int nbrFiles = pathNames.Length; for(int a=0;a<nbrFiles;a++) { theFile = pathNames[a].Split('\'); spot = theFile.Length - 1; fileNames[a] = theFile[spot]; } return fileNames; }// end GetFiles }// end class HeianFiles }// end namespace

Administrator · Answer

Hi, I really don't no what u want to.To get the filenames from the specific directory what u can do is just do like like this will give u the list of files in the path you want public string[] GetFiles(string thePath) { return Directory.GetFiles(thePath); } Thanks edward prakash

Administrator · Answer

The problem is the scope of variable a, which is scoped to the for loop. Try declaring it prior to the loop and that should solve it.

Administrator · Answer

That helped, thanks!

Administrator · Answer

I don't think that there is a problem with the 'a', but are you sure that the table pathNames is not empty? Then you wille have problems with nbrFiles. And it will generator a problem in your 'for' line. Check this and when this is your problem, you can better initialize filenNames as a table with zero elements. public string[] fileNames = new string[0]; Then in GetFiles write a 'if'-statement. int spot; pathNames = Directory.GetFiles(thPath); if (pathNames != null) { ... ... } return fileNames; If there are no files in thPath, pathNames will be null. You only have to check the length of the table if you use this function.