I What is the purpose of exceptions and exception handling?

I Vocabulary: throw/raise and catch/handle

I Exception propagation
I Java checked and unchecked exceptions
I Java try statement
I “Final wishes”
I Java try-resource statement
What are exceptions?

Bad things happen occasionally.

√
arithmetic: ÷0, −9
environmental: no space, malformed input
undetectable: subscript out of range, value does not meet prescribed
constraint
application: can’t invert a singular matrix, can’t pop an element from
an empty stack
Some of these anomolies can be detected by hardware, some by the
operating system, some by the runtime system of the language, and
other only by the application itself. Which is which may depend on the
language implementation, hardware, etc.
In general, an exception should be used when there is an inability to
fulfill a specification.
Exceptions

Raising an exception halts normal execution abruptly and alternative

statements are sought to be executed, possibly the program
terminates.
There are many exceptions already defined by the Java language and
the Java API And the programs may create their own exceptions.
Exceptions are said to be raised or thrown at the point of interruption
and are said to be handled or caught at the point when normal
execution resumes.
Examples

public static void main ( String [] args ) {

out . println (9.8/0.0); // OK
out . println (5/0); // Exception
}

> java Arith

Infinity
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArithmeticException: / by zer
at Arith.main(Arith.java:5)
>
Examples from JVM

Contents of the file NonMain.java:

public static void main ( String args ) {
out . println (" Hello ?" );
}

Common mistakes running a Java program yield very confusing

exceptions raised by the runtime system (not the program):

> java NotMain

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: NotMain
Exception in thread "main"

> java NonMain

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: main
Exception in thread "main"
More Examples

Some common predefined exceptions:

ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException, NumberFormatException,
NegativeArraySizeException, NullPointerException.

except/Examples.java – predefined exceptions

Why Exceptions?

Why not use ordinary computations values like integers (return-code)?

In order to separate normal flow of control from error handling.

if (( fd = open ( name , O_RDONLY ))== -1) {

fprintf ( stderr , " Error %d opening file " , errno );
exit ();
}

See also the C program from Stevens. Well-written (defensive) code

must look like this.

main.c
Reasons Not To Use Ad Hoc Approach

There are some problems with an ad hoc approach:

I Easy to leave out checking, hence the code will be error prone
I Poor modular decomposition
I Hard to test such programs
I Inconsistency — sometimes null, sometimes -1
I No additional info about the exception
Catching

The try statement is used to catch an exception and resume normal

execution.
What can you do when an exception happens? If you can, repair the
problem. Sometimes there is nothing to do! Some options are: try
again anyway, log the incident, terminate the program early (with an
explanation), print a stack trace, . . ..
If you do nothing Java will terminate the program and print a stack
trace—often this is the best you can do.
More about the try statement later. First, we must understand what
an exception is in Java, so we can learn the mechanisms in Java
which support exception handling.
What is an Exception?

Exceptions in Java are not new and different entities (like in Ada or
SML). Exceptions are Java classes which are subclasses of
java.lang.Throwable.
An exception is not a separate kind of entity in Java, it is a class. But
exceptions do have a special role in the language. They are not the
programmer’s data, but they serve as signals or indicators.
Since different instances of an exception class are usually
indistinguishable and not very important, we have a tendency to blur
the distinction between an exception and an instance of the exception.
We speak of the FileNotFoundException exception, and not of an
instance of the FileNotFoundException exception.
Class Hierarchy

Object

Throwable

Error Exception

RuntimeException
checked
Checked

Some exceptions are checked exceptions this is important to know.

(As we will see later.)

A checked exception is an exception that derives from Throwable, but

not from either Error or RuntimeException.
Example

The exception NoSuchElementException is an unchecked exception

because it is a subclass of RuntimeException, as seen can be seen
in the Java API documentation below:
Example
The exception FileNotFoundException is a checked exception
because it is a subclass of Throwable and it is not a subclass of
RuntimeException nor Error, as seen can be seen in the Java API
documentation below:
throw

The programmer raises an exception with the throw statement, for

example:
throw new Exception ()

If a methods throws a checked exception (and does not catch it), then
it must declare the fact in a throws clause.
static void method ( String arg ) throws AnException

Do not confuse the throw statement with the throws clause of a

method declaration. These are two different keywords.
The important consequence of checked exceptions is that they must
be caught or declared, otherwise the program won’t compile.
import java . io .*;
import java . util .*;
public class Checked {
// Will raise NoSuchElementException,
// if args.length==0
public static void main ( String [] args ) {
System . out . println ( Collections . min (
Arrays . asList ( args )));
}
// Will raise FileNofFoundException,
// if ’file_name’ does not exist
public static void main ( String file_name )
throws FileNotFoundException {
InputStream inp =new FileInputStream ( file_name );
}
}
Blocks With Handlers

In Java (as most languages) a set of handlers watches over a block of

code. When an exception is raised somewhere (perhaps in a
subroutine call) in the block, execution stops at that point and a
handler is sought. If one of the handlers is invoked after a successful
search, the code of the handler is executed (naturally), and then the
entire block ends as if no exception were ever raised.
The try statement contains and guards a block of statements.
try {

// the normal flow of

// executable statements

} catch (final IOException ex ) {

// handler for ‘‘ex’’
} catch (final Exception ex ) {
// handler for ‘‘ex’’
}

NB. Order of handlers is important; catching Exception is like else

in a conditional statement.
Catching Multiple Exceptions

try {

// the normal flow of

// executable statements

} catch (final IOException | SQLException ex ) {

logger . log ( ex );
throw ex
}

It is possible to have a handler catch distinct exceptions. NB. The

name of the exception instance is implicitly final.
Exception Propagation

There is no attempt at going back and finishing remaining actions in

the block. Although this appears desirable, it is more difficult than it
looks. Nonetheless, the programmer can still program any sort of
resumption imaginable by careful use of block-structured exception
handling,
Exception propagation. Modern languages all take the same approach
to exception propagation, the search for the place to resume normal
execution: follow the dynamic chain of method or block activations.
This is obviously correct: the caller who asked for the service should
hear of the failure.
Examples

I Declare.java – catch or declare checked exceptions

I Pre.java – handling some predefined exceptions
I Value.java – hierarchy of user defined excpetions some with
members to hold additional information
I Trace.java – call printStackTrace()
Exception Chaining∗

Exceptions can have other exceptions as causes.

void aMethod () throws SomeException {
try {
someOtherMethod ();
} catch (final SomeOtherException soe ) {
final SomeException se =
new SomeException ( soe . getMessage ());
se . initCause ( soe );
throw se ;
}
}
Java has one combined statement:
// previous statements
try {
// executable statements
} catch (final NullPointerException ex ) {
// handler for an exception
} finally {
// 1. normal, 2. caught exc, 3. uncaught
// exc, 4. break, continue, 5. return
// final wishes
}
// following statements
finally Clause

There is some confusion with the finally clause.

The code in the finally clause ought not change the kind of control
flow: normal, exceptional, return, or break. In other words, if the block
is getting ready to break out of a loop it ought not to return instead. Or,
if the block is getting ready to raise an exception it ought not to break
out of a loop instead.
I except/FinReturn.java – Java warns
Try-Resource Construct

try (final BufferedReader br =

new BufferedReader (new InputStreamReader (
new FileInputStream (" file . txt ")," LATIN -1 " ))) {
for(;;) {
final String line = br . readLine ();
if ( line ==null) break;
System . out . println ( line );
}
} catch (final IOException ex ) {
ex . printStackTrace ();
}

See a more substantial example in a server:

net/KnockKnockServer.java.
1. Use exception handling for unusual, unexpected, unlikely
situations.
2. Do not use exception handling for detecting the end-of-file in the
input streams. That is not an unusual case and there are specific
methods for detecting end-of-file.
3. Raise an exception when a method cannot fulfill its specification.
4. Do not catch an exception to cover-up bad programming.
5. Do not handle an exception unless you can fix the problem.
6. There is little point in catching an exception just to report it. The
runtime system reports exceptions adequately.
7. Never fail to report or log that an exception has been raised.
(Checkstyle will flag catch (Exception e) for EmptyBlock.)