Creating an array of objects using initializers seems to fail

Question

I have a GameObject we'll call the GM. Attached to it is a script that's meant to be the primary logical controller for a game.

In that script, somewhere, I have:

private dbEquipment equipment_database = new dbEquipment();

The relevant snippet from dbEquipment.cs:

public class dbEquipment {
    private int total_items = 13;
    private clEquipment[] _master_equipment_list;

    public dbEquipment() {
        _master_equipment_list = new clEquipment[total_items];
        _master_equipment_list[0] = new clEquipment {
            ... //large amount of object initializing here
        };
        ... //etc, for all 13 items
    }
}

When I run Unity, I get:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

Pointed at the line:

_master_equipment_list[0] = new clEquipment { ...

I tried running through the array and initializing every clEquipment object to an empty clEquipment() first:

for(int x = 0; x < total_items; x++) { _master_equipment_list[x] = new clEquipment(); }

just to be totally sure that the array was actually filled, but I got the same result.

I've also tried changing it to be a List<clEquipment>, and changing everything appropriately -- no dice.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

My guess is that you may been including a null reference in the section that says //large amount of object initializing here when you create a new clEquipment.

_master_equipment_list[0] = new clEquipment {
    ... //check for nulls here
};

Answer 2

You might want to post the code for the clEquipment class. You say you tried initializing every object...did you do that before the break line? If it didn't break, thats a good sign.

Also, hard to tell from your code, but do you need a "()" in the initialization where it breaks? Just a thought

_master_equipment_list[0] = new clEquipment () {