Ok, Im working on a program which needs to read a text file like so : 0000000000 0011110000 0011110000 0010010000 0000000000 0100001000 0010010000 0001100000 0000000000 0000000000 and put the numbers into a matrix of ints, so I wrote import java.io.*; public class IO { public static void main(String args[]) { int[][] background= new int[10][10]; BufferedReader input = null; try { FileReader file = new FileReader("myText.txt"); // Open the file. input = new BufferedReader(file); // Tie 'input' to this file. } catch(FileNotFoundException x) { // The file may not exist. System.err.println("File not found: " + args[0]); System.exit(2); } try { String line; for(int s=0;s<10;s++) { line = input.readLine(); for(int a=0;a<10;a++) { char temp=line.charAt(a); String temp2="" + temp; background[s][a]=Integer.parseInt(temp2); } } } catch(IOException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } for(int s=0;s<10;s++){ System.out.println(); for(int a=0;a<10;a++) System.out.print(background[s][a]);} } } whichs works, but when I take the part out of it that I need and put it into the class I need it for, import java.io.*; public class envy extends envycollision { int[][] background; String line; public envy(int arraynum) { background =new int [10][10]; BufferedReader input = null; try { FileReader file = new FileReader("C:\\myText.txt"); // Open the file. input = new BufferedReader(file); // Tie 'input' to this file. } catch(FileNotFoundException x) {} try { for(int s=1;s<11;s++) { line = input.readLine(); for(int a=0;a<10;a++) { char temp=line.charAt(a); String temp2="" + temp; background[s-1][a]=Integer.parseInt(temp2); } } } catch(IOException x) {} } } it compiles correctly but when I open the applet it fails to load. If I replace that code with a pre-made array the applet runs so Im wondering why the code above works in one case and not in another, any help would be great