Thread: Return statements while building a JPanel!

Hello, i'm having this where i'm trying to return a JPanel with tempPictures but only if they aren't already filled with "actual" pictures. However this causes problems because your never shore that the if statement will execute. I tried adding an else statement but i cant return null i must return a JPanel;

	private JPanel buildTopShelf() {
		if(myMediaHandler.mediaList.size() < 6) {
		JPanel mediaPanel = new JPanel();
		mediaPanel.setOpaque(false);
		mediaPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(1,6,22,0));
		mediaPanel.setBounds(90, 14, 1020, 210);
 
		java.net.URL where;
		try {
			where = new URL("https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16670644/Projekt/TempPic.png");
			ImageIcon image = new ImageIcon(where);
			for(int i = myMediaHandler.mediaList.size(); i < 6; i++) {
				JLabel imageLabel = new JLabel(image);
				mediaPanel.add(imageLabel);
			}
 
		} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			System.out.println("Error loading TempPic that shows allowed movie spots");
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		return mediaPanel;
	}
		else {
			return null;
		}
	}

It turned out to be an error with the size(); from the ArrayList. Ones i fixed that and changed return null; to return mediaPanel; it worked the way i wanted.