Object oriented programming

Chapter Five

Exceptions Handling
by
Demeke G.

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 Exceptions
▪ An exception is an event that disrupts the normal flow
of the program.
▪ An exception is a problem that arises during the
execution of a program.
▪ It is an abnormal condition.
▪ An exception can occur for many different reasons,
including
▪ 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
▪ JVM has run out of memory.
▪ Exceptions are caused by user error, programmer error,
and physical resources that have failed in some manner.
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 Cont..
There are three categories of exceptions
A)Checked exceptions
❖ An exception that is typically a user error or a problem
that cannot be foreseen by the programmer.
❖Cannot be ignored at the time of compilation
o For example, if a file is to be opened, but the file cannot
be found, an exception occurs.

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 Cont..
B)Unchecked exceptions
❖An exception that probably could have been avoided by the
programmer.
❖These are also called as Runtime Exceptions
❖Are not checked at compile-time rather they are checked at
runtime.

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 Cont..
C)Errors
❖These are not exceptions at all, but problems that arise
beyond the control of the user or the programmer.
❖Error is irrecoverable.
❖For example, OutOfMemoryError,
VirtualMachineError, memory leaks, stack
overflow errors etc.

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 Exception Hierarchy
▪ All exception classes are subtypes of the
java.lang.Exception class.
▪ The Exception and Error class is a subclass of the
Throwable class.
▪ Errors 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.

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Hierarchy of Java Exception classes

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 Exceptions Methods
❖ List of important methods available in the Throwable
class.
▪ public String getMessage() :Returns a detailed message about
the exception that has occurred. This message is initialized in the
Throwable constructor.
▪ public Throwable getCause(): Returns the cause of the
exception as represented by a Throwable object.
▪ public String toString():Returns the name of the class
concatenated with the result of getMessage()
▪ public void printStackTrace():Prints the result of toString()
along with the stack trace to System.err, the error output stream.

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 Catching Exceptions
▪ Exception Handling is a mechanism to handle runtime
errors such as ClassNotFound, IO, SQL, Remote etc.
▪ The core advantage of exception handling is to maintain
the normal flow of the application.
▪ Exception normally disrupts the normal flow of the
application.
▪ 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.

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 cont..
▪ Code within a try/catch block is referred to as protected
code.
▪ 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. 10
 Cont..
▪ 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
▪ We can’t have catch or finally clause without a try
statement.
▪ A try statement should have either catch block or finally
block, it can have both blocks.
▪ Can’t write any code between try-catch-finally blocks.
▪ Can have multiple catch blocks with a single try statement.
▪ try-catch blocks can be nested similar to if-else statements.
▪ Can have only one finally block with a try-catch
statement. 11
 Example
import java.io.*;
public class ExcepTest{
public static void main(String args[]){
try{
int a[]=new int[2];
System.out.println("Access element three:"+a[3]);
}catch(ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException e)
{
System.out.println("Exception thrown :"+ e);
}
System.out.println("Out of the block");
}
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 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 the
throw keyword.
▪ 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
} 13
 Cont..
▪ A method can declare that it throws more than one exception,
in which case the exceptions are declared in a list separated
by commas.
▪ For example, the following method declares that it throws a
RemoteException and an InsufficientFundsException:
import java.io.*;
public class className
{
public void withdraw(double amount) throws
RemoteException, InsufficientFundsException
{
// Method implementation
}
//Remainder of class definition
}
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 Example
class CustomerList{
void getAllCustomers() throws Exception{
// some other code goes here
try{
file.read(); // this line may throw an exception
} catch (IOException e) {
throw new Exception (“Customer List is not available “+ e.getMessage());
}
}
public static void main(String[] args){
System.out.println(“Customer List”);
try{
getAllCustomers();
}
catch(Exception e){
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}} 15
 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
❖ The finally block is optional.
❖ For each try block, there can be only one finally block.

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 Cont..
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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