Skip to main content

Discuss the Java error handling mechanism? What is the difference between Runtime (unchecked) exceptions and checked exceptions? What is the implication of catching all the exceptions with the type “Exception”?

Errors: When a dynamic linking failure or some other "hard" failure in the virtual machine occurs, the virtual machine throws an Error. Typical Java programs should not catch Errors. In addition, it's unlikely that typical Java programs will ever throw Errors either.

Exceptions: Most programs throw and catch objects that derive from the Exception class. Exceptions indicate that a problem occurred but that the problem is not a serious JVM problem. An Exception class has many subclasses. These descendants indicate various types of exceptions that can occur. NegativeArraySizeException indicates that a program attempted to create an array with a negative size. One exception subclass has special meaning in the Java language: RuntimeException. All the exceptions except RuntimeException are compiler checked exceptions. If a method is capable of throwing a checked exception it must declare it in its method header or handle it in a try/catch block. Failure to do so raises a compiler error. So checked exceptions can, at compile time, greatly reduce the occurrence of unhandled exceptions surfacing at runtime in a given application at the expense of requiring large throws declarations and encouraging use of poorlyconstructed try/catch blocks. Checked exceptions are present in other languages like C++, C#, and Python.
For example,

Runtime Exceptions (unchecked exception)

A RuntimeException class represents exceptions that occur within the Java virtual machine (during runtime). An example of a runtime exception is NullPointerException. The cost of checking for the runtime exception often outweighs the benefit of catching it. Attempting to catch or specify all of them all the time would make your code unreadable and unmaintainable. The compiler allows runtime exceptions to go uncaught and unspecified. If you like, you can catch these exceptions just like other exceptions. However, you do not have to declare it in your "throws" clause or catch it in your catch clause. In addition, you can create your own RuntimeException subclasses and this approach is probably preferred at times because checked exceptions can complicate method signatures and can be difficult to follow.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Java Health Center - Overview and Features

This video highlights the features available in Health Center. Health Center is a low-processor and memory usage diagnostic tool for monitoring the status of a running IBM Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Health Center provides live information and recommendations in each of the following areas: - Classes: information about classes being loaded - Environment: details of the configuration and system of the monitored application - Garbage Collection: information about the Java heap and pause times - Locking: information about contention on inflated locks - Profiling: sampling profile of Java methods including call paths

WebSphere MQ Interview Questions

What is MQ and what does it do? Ans. MQ stands for MESSAGE QUEUEING. WebSphere MQ allows application programs to use message queuing to participate in message-driven processing. Application programs can communicate across different platforms by using the appropriate message queuing software products. What is Message driven process? Ans . When messages arrive on a queue, they can automatically start an application using triggering. If necessary, the applications can be stopped when the message (or messages) have been processed. What are advantages of the MQ? Ans. 1. Integration. 2. Asynchrony 3. Assured Delivery 4. Scalability. How does it support the Integration? Ans. Because the MQ is independent of the Operating System you use i.e. it may be Windows, Solaris,AIX.It is independent of the protocol (i.e. TCP/IP, LU6.2, SNA, NetBIOS, UDP).It is not required that both the sender and receiver should be running on the same platform What is Asynchrony? Ans. With messag...

Java Garbage Collection

Explain Garbage collection mechanism in Java? Garbage collection is one of the most important features of Java. The purpose of garbage collection is to identify and discard objects that are no longer needed by a program so that their resources can be reclaimed and reused. A Java object is subject to garbage collection when it becomes unreachable to the program in which it is used. Garbage collection is also called automatic memory management as JVM automatically removes the unused variables/objects (value is null) from the memory. Every class inherits finalize() method from java.lang.Object, the finalize() method is called by garbage collector when it determines no more references to the object exists. In Java, it is good idea to explicitly assign null into a variable when no more in use. In Java on calling System.gc() and Runtime.gc(), JVM tries to recycle the unused objects, but there is no guarantee when all the objects will garbage collected. Garbage collection is an automatic pro...