How do I know if a cell returns a null value while reading an Excel Sheet?

apache-poi, java

Solution

You need to test the `cellValue` if it is not null, since using `Row.RETURN_NULL_AND_BLANK` will return `null` in cases where you are trying to access a missing cell.

You are getting a `NullPointerException` because the 10-th column on a specified row is missing.

If you need to handle differently the missing vs. blank cases you can use the following:

Cell cellValue = row.getCell(10, Row.RETURN_NULL_AND_BLANK);
if (cellValue == null)
    List.add("CELL NOT FOUND");
else if("".equals(cellValue.getStringCellValue().trim()))
    List.add("MISSING CONTENT");
else 
    List.add(cellValue.getStringCellValue());

Problem

I am reading values from some specific cells in an excel sheet. Those cells generally contain String but sometimes they may be blank (thus may return a blank or a null). I am using the following code to get the cell data: ``` Cell cellValue = row.getCell(10, Row.RETURN_NULL_AND_BLANK); List.add(cellValue.getStringCellValue()); ``` However, when I run this code I get a `NullPointerException`. Can anybody point out what is wrong and should be added? Note: I am deliberately using `Row.RETURN_NULL_AND_BLANK` and not `MissingCellPolicy.RETURN_NULL_AND_BLANK` because using the latter was giving me an error.

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