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Trail: Learning the Java Language
Lesson: Language Basics

Exception-Handling Statements

The Java programming language provides a mechanism known as exceptions (in the glossary) to help programs report and handle errors. When an error occurs, the program throws an exception. What does this mean? It means that the normal flow of the program is interrupted and that the runtime environment attempts to find an exception handler—a block of code that can handle a particular type of error. The exception handler can attempt to recover from the error or, if it determines that the error is unrecoverable, provide a gentle exit from the program.

Three statements play a part in handling exceptions:

Here's the general form of these statements.

try {
    statement(s)
} catch (exceptiontype name) {
    statement(s)
} finally {
    statement(s)
}
This is a brief overview of the statements used in reporting and handling errors. However, other factors and considerations — such as the difference between runtime and checked exceptions and the hierarchy of exceptions classes, which represent various types of exceptions — play a role in using the exception mechanism. The chapter Handling Errors Using Exceptions (in the Learning the Java Language trail) provides a complete discussion of this subject.

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