Null Pointer Exception on the Digester parse of the chain-config.xml

[Vijay Balakrishnan]

I keep getting a Null Pointer Exception on the Digester parse of the
chain-config.xml.Using Commons Chain 1.1 with the digester jar and beanutils
and logging jars.

1. CatalogLoader.java:

public Catalog getCatalog(String configfile) throws Exception {
    ConfigParser parser = new ConfigParser();<== done in Constructor
CatalogLoader()
    if (catalog == null) {
        URL configFileUrl = FileUtils.findURL("chain-config.xml");//find
this from claspath
        //Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResource(new
File("chain-config.xml"));
        //<== I am able to see the contents of the chain-config.xml

        parser.parse(configFileUrl);<== fails here

    }
    catalog = CatalogFactoryBase.getInstance().getCatalog();
    return catalog;
    }







2. chain-config.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<catalogs>
<catalog name="sentinel">
  <chain name="loginProcessor">
    <command id="securityEqualsHeaderProcessor" classname="
com.usbank.aid.chain.SecurityEqualsHeaderProcessor"
        />
  </chain>
</catalog>
</catalogs>


3. SecurityEqualsHeaderProcessor.java :

public class SecurityEqualsHeaderProcessor implements Command {

    private String oldNames;
    ...


I keep getting a Null Pointer Exception. Here is the stack Trace:

at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.createSAXException(Digester.java
:3181)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.createSAXException(Digester.java
:3207)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.startElement(Digester.java:1456)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.startElement(Unknown
Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractXMLDocumentParser.emptyElement(Unknown
Source)
    at
org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(Unknown
Source)
    at
org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown
Source)
    at 
org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown
Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1745)
    at org.apache.commons.chain.config.ConfigParser.parse(ConfigParser.java
:198)

TIA for any help,
Vijay