mystified with javax.sound.sampled.Clip NullPointerException - nullpointerexception

Question

mystified with javax.sound.sampled.Clip NullPointerException
Running on Eclipse on a Mac.
Input wave file exists,
Constructor works fine. Object instance is created.
Just can't access the instance methods, any of them.
Probably a Java 101 issue here, so I apologize in advance, if so?
Or Eclipses 101, for that matter...
public class AudioClipTester {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
AudioClipPlayer mooMoo = new AudioClipPlayer("cow.wav");
mooMoo.play();
}
}
/=====
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import javax.sound.sampled.AudioInputStream;
import javax.sound.sampled.AudioSystem;
import javax.sound.sampled.Clip;
import javax.sound.sampled.LineUnavailableException;
import javax.sound.sampled.UnsupportedAudioFileException;
/**
* Handles play, pause, and looping of sounds for the game.
* #author Tyler Thomas
*
*/
public class AudioClipPlayer
{
private Clip myClip;
public AudioClipPlayer(String fileName) {
try {
File file = new File(fileName);
if (file.exists()) {
Clip myClip = AudioSystem.getClip();
System.out.println("file "+fileName+" is in root dir");
AudioInputStream ais = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(file.toURI().toURL());
myClip.open(ais);
System.out.println("ais "+ais.toString()+" is open");
}
else {
throw new RuntimeException("Sound: file not found: " + fileName);
}
}
catch (MalformedURLException e) {
throw new RuntimeException("Sound: Malformed URL: " + e);
}
catch (UnsupportedAudioFileException e) {
throw new RuntimeException("Sound: Unsupported Audio File: " + e);
}
catch (IOException e) {
throw new RuntimeException("Sound: Input/Output Error: " + e);
}
catch (LineUnavailableException e) {
throw new RuntimeException("Sound: Line Unavailable: " + e);
}
}
public void play(){
System.out.println("clip "+myClip.toString()+" is about to play");
myClip.setFramePosition(0); // Must always rewind!
myClip.loop(0);
myClip.start();
// Thread.sleep(10000);
}
public void loop(){
myClip.loop(Clip.LOOP_CONTINUOUSLY);
}
public void stop(){
myClip.stop();
}
}

Answer 1

That is because in the following line:
Clip myClip = AudioSystem.getClip();
you declare and initialize local variable and the field myClip stays null. Try to replace the above line with
myClip = AudioSystem.getClip();