javaGeom - NullPointerException when trying to get the difference of two polygons

Question

I have this method in my class (under Google App Engine), which simply gets a math.geom2d.polygon.Polygon2D object to calculate its difference with another local Polygon2D. This is how it looks:

public void substractPolygon(Polygon2D polygon){
    Polygon2D subbedPolygon = Polygons2D.difference(thePolygon, polygon);
    placeList = polygonToList(subbedPolygon);
}

I get this NullPointerException from the library, and I don't know what to do with it:

    WARNING: /runningappserver
java.lang.NullPointerException
at math.geom2d.polygon.Polygons2D.convertToGpcjPolygon(Polygons2D.java:429)
at math.geom2d.polygon.Polygons2D.difference(Polygons2D.java:417)
at com.panstudio.RunningAppServer.Run.substractPolygon(Run.java:266)
at com.panstudio.RunningAppServer.RunningAppServerServlet.doPost(RunningAppServerServlet.java:24)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:637)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:717)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:511)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1166)
at com.google.appengine.api.socket.dev.DevSocketFilter.doFilter(DevSocketFilter.java:74)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
at com.google.appengine.tools.development.ResponseRewriterFilter.doFilter(ResponseRewriterFilter.java:123)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
at com.google.appengine.tools.development.HeaderVerificationFilter.doFilter(HeaderVerificationFilter.java:34)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
at com.google.appengine.api.blobstore.dev.ServeBlobFilter.doFilter(ServeBlobFilter.java:61)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
at com.google.apphosting.utils.servlet.TransactionCleanupFilter.doFilter(TransactionCleanupFilter.java:43)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
at com.google.appengine.tools.development.StaticFileFilter.doFilter(StaticFileFilter.java:125)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
at com.google.appengine.tools.development.BackendServersFilter.doFilter(BackendServersFilter.java:97)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.handle(ServletHandler.java:388)
at org.mortbay.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:216)
at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.SessionHandler.handle(SessionHandler.java:182)
at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.handle(ContextHandler.java:765)
at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.handle(WebAppContext.java:418)
at com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppEngineWebAppContext.handle(DevAppEngineWebAppContext.java:94)
at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152)
at com.google.appengine.tools.development.JettyContainerService$ApiProxyHandler.handle(JettyContainerService.java:383)
at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152)
at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.handle(Server.java:326)
at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handleRequest(HttpConnection.java:542)
at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection$RequestHandler.content(HttpConnection.java:938)
at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpParser.java:755)
at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseAvailable(HttpParser.java:218)
at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handle(HttpConnection.java:404)
at org.mortbay.io.nio.SelectChannelEndPoint.run(SelectChannelEndPoint.java:409)
at org.mortbay.thread.QueuedThreadPool$PoolThread.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:582)

Answer 1

Either thePolygon or polygon is null. Easiest way to check which is to either to debug and put a breakpoint in an IDE, or put some logging/output and run a method on each.