Question

Does Java have any syntax for managing exceptions that might be thrown when declaring and initializing a class’s member variable?

public class MyClass
{
  // Doesn't compile because constructor can throw IOException
  private static MyFileWriter x = new MyFileWriter("foo.txt"); 
  ...
}

Or do such initializations always have to be moved into a method where we can declare throws IOException or wrap the initialization in a try-catch block?

Answer 1

Use a static initialization block

public class MyClass
{
  private static MyFileWriter x;

  static {
    try {
      x = new MyFileWriter("foo.txt"); 
    } catch (Exception e) {
      logging_and _stuff_you_might_want_to_terminate_the_app_here_blah();
    } // end try-catch
  } // end static init block
  ...
}