I'm having this problem in Unity when trying to initialize a few variables. I have an example below.

public class PlanetDetails
{
private int planetID;
private string planetName;

public int PlanetID
{
get { return planetID; }
set { planetID = value; }
}

public string PlanetName
{
get { return planetName; }
set { planetName = value; }
}
}

PlanetDetails[] Planet = new PlanetDetails[10];

...

Planet.PlanetID = (System.SystemID + Random.Range(0, 1000));
Planet.PlanetName = "Test" + i;
Debug.Log(Planet.PlanetID);
Debug.Log(Planet.PlanetName);

When I try to initialize a variable, it gives me an error in Unity, and since I'm pretty new to programming, I can't understand why. Any help would be great.

What is the exact error message, and what line is it on?

Planet[i] = new PlanetDetails();

What is the exact error message, and what line is it on?

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
GameGUISystemDetails.Start () (at Assets/Scripts/GameGUISystemDetails.cs:157)

The line is this: Planet.PlanetID = (System.SystemID + Random.Range(0, 1000));

If I comment this line, the warning will go to the next line, which is the initialization of Planet.PlanetName and so on.

So the problem is that you are expecting the elements of the array to be there, but they're not. You're only allocating the space for the elements in your array, you then need to put something there.

PlanetDetails[] Planet = new PlanetDetails[10];
for(int i=0; i<10;i++)
  Planet[i]=new PlanetDetails();

:D Thank you, I completely forgot about that ...

The Linq based solution is below, I prefer as less "moving parts" to screw up :)

PlanetDetails[] Planet = Enumerable.Repeat(0, 10).Select(_ => new PlanetDetails()).ToArray();

I am using _ as the select variable passed in as it is not used

As a follow up, in the above Range and Repeat are interchangeable given we are not using the value in _

var Planet = Enumerable.Repeat(0, 10).Select(_ => new PlanetDetails()).ToArray();

=

var Planet = Enumerable.Range(0, 10).Select(_ => new PlanetDetails()).ToArray();

There is a more subtle use of repeat

Func<PlanetDetails> buildPlanet = () => new PlanetDetails();

var Planet = Enumerable.Repeat(buildPlanet, 10).Select(build => build()).ToArray()

This returns the same planet factory 10 times, we then call the builder in each case and slot the results into an array

:)

private static IEnumerable<T> Generate(Func<T> f) {
    while (true) yield return f();
}

var Planets = Generate(() => new PlanetDetails()).Take(10).ToArray();

Just curious: My C# is rusty, but isn't there anything like this?

private static IEnumerable<T> Generate(Func<T> f) {
    while (true) yield return f();
}

Used like so:

var Planets = Generate(() => new PlanetDetails()).Take(10).ToArray();

Feels a bit more straightforward than WozNZ's suggestions.

Nice one, very explicit. For some reason I forgot about using a generator