getText and java.lang.NullPointerException

I have a database connection which works well when using static final Strings, i.e. DATABASE_NAME = "test";

I want to make this a little more dynamic so I created a text box on my JFrame

Code:

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                txtDBName = new JTextField();
                txtDBName.setText("");

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Then I created a method to return the String of txtDBName as follows:

Code:

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    public String getDatabaseName()
    {
          return txtDBName.getText().trim();
    }

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I then want to use the value in txtDBName as the name of my database in my connection string as follows:

Code:

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conn=DriverManager.getConnection(dbView.DATABASE_URL + dbView.getDatabaseName() , username, password);

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I also tried the following without any luck

Code:

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conn=DriverManager.getConnection(dbView.DATABASE_URL + dbView.txtDBName.getText(), username, password);

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but I keep getting a nullPointerException

Can someone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks

It's okay - I figured it out. I was calling the getText value in the wrong place