Java - Exception Hierarchy

An exception is a problem that arises during the execution of a program. An exception can occur for many different reasons, including the following:

• A user has entered invalid data.
• A file that needs to be opened cannot be found.
• A network connection has been lost in the middle of communications or the JVM has run out of memory.

Some of these exceptions are caused by user error, others by programmer error, and others by physical resources that have failed in some manner.

All exception classes are subtypes of the java.lang.Exception class. The exception class is a subclass of the Throwable class. Other than the exception class there is another subclass called Error which is derived from the Throwable class.

Errors are not normally trapped form the Java programs. These conditions normally happen in case of severe failures, which are not handled by the java programs. Errors are generated to indicate errors generated by the runtime environment. Example : JVM is out of Memory. Normally programs cannot recover from errors.

Catching Exceptions:

A method catches an exception using a combination of the try and catch keywords. A try/catch block is placed around the code that might generate an exception. Code within a try/catch block is referred to as protected code, and the syntax for using try/catch looks like the following:

try
{
   //Protected code
}catch(ExceptionName e1)
{
   //Catch block
}

A catch statement involves declaring the type of exception you are trying to catch. If an exception occurs in protected code, the catch block (or blocks) that follows the try is checked. If the type of exception that occurred is listed in a catch block, the exception is passed to the catch block much as an argument is passed into a method parameter.

The throws/throw Keywords:

If a method does not handle a checked exception, the method must declare it using the throws keyword. The throws keyword appears at the end of a method's signature.
You can throw an exception, either a newly instantiated one or an exception that you just caught, by using thethrow keyword. Try to understand the different in throws and throw keywords.
The following method declares that it throws a RemoteException:

import java.io.*;
public class className
{
   public void deposit(double amount) throws RemoteException
   {
      // Method implementation
      throw new RemoteException();
   }
   //Remainder of class definition
}

For more info about throw click here

The finally Keyword:

The finally keyword is used to create a block of code that follows a try block. A finally block of code always executes, whether or not an exception has occurred.
Using a finally block allows you to run any cleanup-type statements that you want to execute, no matter what happens in the protected code.
A finally block appears at the end of the catch blocks and has the following syntax:

try
{
   //Protected code
}catch(ExceptionType1 e1)
{
   //Catch block
}catch(ExceptionType2 e2)
{
   //Catch block
}catch(ExceptionType3 e3)
{
   //Catch block
}finally
{
   //The finally block always executes.
}

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