diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index d6dec783..ad9d47bf 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+Mon Jan 21 14:34:37 CET 2002 Daniel Veillard <daniel@veillard.com>
+
+	* tree.c: Adam Lounds pointed out a bug in xmlSearchNs()
+	  
 Mon Jan 21 09:55:21 CET 2002 Daniel Veillard <daniel@veillard.com>
 
 	* xpath.c include/libxml/xpathInternals.h: the change made to
diff --git a/tree.c b/tree.c
index 63804610..3370f0e1 100644
--- a/tree.c
+++ b/tree.c
@@ -4070,6 +4070,8 @@ xmlSearchNs(xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr node, const xmlChar *nameSpace) {
     if (node == NULL) return(NULL);
     if ((nameSpace != NULL) &&
 	(xmlStrEqual(nameSpace, (const xmlChar *)"xml"))) {
+	if (doc == NULL)
+	    return(NULL);
 	if (doc->oldNs == NULL) {
 	    /*
 	     * Allocate a new Namespace and fill the fields.