title: cassandra bulk loader database descriptor null pointer exception
body: <p>I'm new to cassandra and trying to follow the bulk load example on the following blog:</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/using-the-cassandra-bulk-loader-updated" rel="nofollow">http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/using-the-cassandra-bulk-loader-updated</a></p>
  
  <p>If I use the packaged jar that's provided and run the example it works. </p>
  
  <p>If I, instead, try to use the provided source file (<a href="https://github.com/yukim/cassandra-bulkload-example/blob/master/src/main/java/bulkload/BulkLoad.java" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/yukim/cassandra-bulkload-example/blob/master/src/main/java/bulkload/BulkLoad.java</a>) and run the resulting jar I get this error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
  at org.apache.cassandra.cql3.statements.UpdateStatement.addUpdateForKey(UpdateStatement.java:109)
  at org.apache.cassandra.io.sstable.CQLSSTableWriter.rawAddRow(CQLSSTableWriter.java:218)
  at org.apache.cassandra.io.sstable.CQLSSTableWriter.addRow(CQLSSTableWriter.java:138)
  at org.apache.cassandra.io.sstable.CQLSSTableWriter.addRow(CQLSSTableWriter.java:113)
  at bulkload.BulkLoad.main(BulkLoad.java:145)
  Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
  at org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor.createAllDirectories(DatabaseDescriptor.java:605)
  at org.apache.cassandra.db.Keyspace.&lt;clinit&gt;(Keyspace.java:73)
  ... 5 more
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I haven't changed anything in the file from the example. I assumed it would have the exact same result as running the jar file that is provided in the same example, but it didn't. Can someone explain what I did wrong? </p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>