BTW, the autoboxing is what's producing the NullPointerException. NULL cannot be assign to primitive int. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3969717#3969717 Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&p=3969717