Java child.getFirstChild().getNodeValue() null pointer

I have an XML file like this :

    <root>
<item1>
<object1>123<object1>
<object2>321</object2>
<fffxlink=""/>
</item1>
<item2>
<object1>fsddf</object1>
<object2>dsf</object2>
<fff xlink=""/>
</item2>
<item3>
<object1>7867</object1>
<object2>87687</object2>
</item3>
<fff xlink=""/>
</root>

I try to get all item ands object names with value of each object. The problem is that my code tries to get value of <fff xlink=""/> and I tried this child.getFirstChild().getNodeValue() != null to ignore his value but I get always java null pointer exception

        XPathFactory factory = XPathFactory.newInstance();
XPath xpath = factory.newXPath();
XPathExpression expr = xpath.compile("/item/object/*");
Object result = expr.evaluate(document, XPathConstants.NODESET);
NodeList nodes = (NodeList) result;
System.out.println("Nb objets : " + nodes.getLength());
for (int i = 0; i < nodes.getLength(); i++) {
Element el = (Element) nodes.item(i);
System.out.println("item : " + el.getNodeName());
NodeList children = el.getChildNodes();
for (int k = 0; k < children.getLength(); k++) {
Node child = children.item(k);
if (child.getNodeType() != Node.TEXT_NODE) {
System.out.println("object : " + child.getNodeName());
if (child.getFirstChild().getNodeValue() != null)
{
if (child.getFirstChild().getNodeType() == Node.TEXT_NODE) System.out.println("Value :" + child.getFirstChild().getNodeValue());
}
else System.out.println("null");
}
}
}

The problem is that

<fffxlink=""/>

has no children, so it has no first child either, so

child.getFirstChild()

hence

child.getFirstChild().getNodeValue()

will throw a NPE.

Solution:

if ((child.getFirstChild() != null) && (child.getFirstChild().getNodeValue() != null))