[android] Reading an image file into bitmap from sdcard, why am I getting a NullPointerException?

How can I read an image file into bitmap from sdcard?

 _path = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath();  

System.out.println("pathhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh1111111112222222 " + _path);  
_path= _path + "/" + "flower2.jpg";  
System.out.println("pathhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh111111111 " + _path);  
Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(_path, options );  

I am getting a NullPointerException for bitmap. It means that the bitmap is null. But I have an image ".jpg" file stored in sdcard as "flower2.jpg". What's the problem?

Try this code:

Bitmap bitmap = null;
File f = new File(_path);
BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
options.inPreferredConfig = Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888;
try {
    bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f), null, options);
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}         
image.setImageBitmap(bitmap);

I wrote the following code to convert an image from sdcard to a Base64 encoded string to send as a JSON object.And it works great:

String filepath = "/sdcard/temp.png";
File imagefile = new File(filepath);
FileInputStream fis = null;
try {
    fis = new FileInputStream(imagefile);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Bitmap bm = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(fis);
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();  
bm.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 100 , baos);    
byte[] b = baos.toByteArray(); 
encImage = Base64.encodeToString(b, Base64.DEFAULT);

It works:

Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(filePath);