Exception Handling in Java

The exception handling in java is one of the powerful mechanism to handle the runtime errors so that normal flow of the application can be maintained.

What is exception

Dictionary Meaning: Exception is an abnormal condition.

In java, exception is an event that disrupts the normal flow of the program. It is an object which is thrown at runtime.

What is exception handling

Exception Handling is a mechanism to handle runtime errors such as ClassNotFound, IO, SQL, Remote etc.

Advantage of Exception Handling

The core advantage of exception handling is to maintain the normal flow of the application. Exception normally disrupts the normal flow of the application that is why we use exception handling. Let's take a scenario:

statement 1;  
statement 2;  
statement 3;  
statement 4;  
statement 5;//exception occurs  
statement 6;  
statement 7;  
statement 8;  
statement 9;  
statement 10;  

Suppose there is 10 statements in your program and there occurs an exception at statement 5, rest of the code will not be executed i.e. statement 6 to 10 will not run. If we perform exception handling, rest of the statement will be executed. That is why we use exception handling in java.

Difference between checked and unchecked exceptions

1) Checked Exception

The classes that extend Throwable class except RuntimeException and Error are known as checked exceptions e.g.IOException, SQLException etc. Checked exceptions are checked at compile-time.

2) Unchecked Exception

The classes that extend RuntimeException are known as unchecked exceptions e.g. ArithmeticException, NullPointerException, ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException etc. Unchecked exceptions are not checked at compile-time rather they are checked at runtime.

3) Error

Error is irrecoverable e.g. OutOfMemoryError, VirtualMachineError, AssertionError etc.

Java Exception Handling Keywords

There are 5 keywords used in java exception handling.

1. try
2. catch
3. finally
4. throw
5. throws