So what I'm trying to do, is break a block (set it to air, so no drops).

If that block also contains a TileEntity, I also want that not to drop its contents.

I achieved this by first calling

world.removeTileEntity(pos)

and then calling

world.setBlockToAir(pos)

 

This works, but can cause problems with some TileEntites, especially ones that do some item drop code and don't check if the TileEntity is null.

So, what are my alternatives?

What's wrong with world.setBlockToAir?

That's not the problem.

The problem is that if I don't remove the TileEntity beforehand, it will drop the contents when setBlockToAir is called.

But at the same time, Block#breakBlock doesn't expect the TileEntity at the position to be null, which can cause nullpointers in some cases.

 

I did a workaround, which seemed to work for me.

Do you think it's somewhat safe?

if (world.getTileEntity(pos) != null)
{
	TileEntity newtile = world.getTileEntity(pos).getClass().newInstance();
	world.removeTileEntity(pos);
	world.setTileEntity(pos, newtile);
}
world.setBlockToAir(pos);

 

First: Please tell us, in game terms (not programming), what game feature you are trying to implement.

 

Second: What you have described so far sounds BAD. When a block changes type (e.g. furnace to air), the tile entity needs to be deleted. Otherwise obsolete tile entities accumulate in the world. There's got to be a better way for you to use your soon-to-be-deleted TE's data without screwing with the TE paradigm.