Array returning null

Questions & Answers
1

I have an array of game objects that I’m trying to search through to get a reference to the one named but I keep getting returned a null and I’m not sure why. I’m a beginner at programming so please temper your answer toward a beginner’s understanding, many thanks.

using System.Linq;
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class ItemManager : MonoBehaviour
}
  public Item[] Items;

  void Start ()
{
for (int i = 0; i < Items.Length; i++)
	{
	  Debug.Log ("Item Name: " + Items*.Name);*
  • }*
    }

//gets a reference to the item with this name
public Item GetItemByName(string itemName)
{

  •  Debug.Log ("inside GetItemByName looking for: " + itemName);*

return Items.FirstOrDefault(item => item.Name == itemName);
}
}
GetItemsByName () is called by another script when the object the other script is attached to is destroyed using OnDestroy ().

2

Unless you have other code initializing the Items array it will always be null. This would cause a NullPointerException (NPE) in Start() on line 14 and in GetItemByName() on line 22.

You could fix this by initializing Items to some default starting size:

public class ItemManager : MonoBehaviour
{
  public Item[] Items = new Item[5]
  ...

If you’re using Items as a variable size container I might recommend using System.Collections.Generic.List (List<T> Class (System.Collections.Generic) | Microsoft Learn) instead.

Your code would change to something like

using System.Linq;
using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections.Generic;
 
public class ItemManager : MonoBehaviour
{
    // the main difference from using an array is the declaration and initialization
    // of Items here.
    public List<Item> Items = new List<Item>();
 
    void Start ()
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < Items.Count; i++)
        {
            Debug.Log ("Item Name: " + Items*.Name);*

}
}

// gets a reference to the item with this name
public Item GetItemByName(string itemName)
{
Debug.Log ("inside GetItemByName looking for: " + itemName);
return Items.FirstOrDefault(item => item.Name == itemName);
}
}