NullPointerException trying to parse a simple XML file.

[Brad O'Hearne]

This should be a pretty simple question.  Running the following code:         try {       XMLReader parser = XMLReaderFactory.createXMLReader("org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser");       parser.setContentHandler(contentHandler);       parser.setErrorHandler(errorHandler);       parser.setEntityResolver(new FeedEntityResolver(dtdPath));       parser.setFeature("http://xml.org/sax/features/validation", true);       try {         parser.parse(uri);       }       catch (IOException e) {         throw new FeedException("IOException, error reading URI: " + e.getMessage(), e);       }       catch (SAXException e) {         e.printStackTrace();         throw new FeedException("Error in parsing: " + e.getMessage(), e);       }     }     catch (SAXException e) {       throw new FeedException("Unable to create parser.", e);     } where contentHandler is a valid ContentHandler errorHandler is a valid ErrorHandler FeedEntityResolver is a valid Entity Resolver uri is a valid absolute filename.   I am having the following Exception thrown:   java.lang.NullPointerException  at org.apache.xerces.framework.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:878)  at org.apache.xerces.framework.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:900)   No methods on my ErrorHandler, ContentHandler, or EntityResolver are ever getting called.  Does anyone have any idea what I am missing?  The problem seems to be contained within the parser code....   Any help is greatly appreciated.   Brad