Question

Exception handling is the most useful mechanism to save the application from the crash. Even most of us following the exception handling mechanism. Even I see many of still getting the exceptions. Are we handling the exceptions in a way that supposed to? My question is, What is best way to handle any kind of exception?

I want to make few things clear. When I say handling an exception that does not only mean that capturing appropriate exception message and showing or logging it. Rather, it suppose to handle corrective action for exception.

Lets consider this piece of code:

try {
  someMethod1();
} catch (MyException e) {
  System.out.println(e.getMessage());
} catch (YourException e) {
  System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}

In the above code, “MyException” and “YourException” may not catch all kind of Exception. But, of course we can use “java.lang.Exception”. How would we identify the correct exception type? and how to handle that exception? especially when using external libraries.

More detail upon request.

Thanks

Answer 1

You do not want to capture Runtime exceptions. The reason being, you are just hiding a bug right there. Instead let the application fail and fix it. To answer to your questions, if you catch Throwable, you are going to basically eat up any kind of exceptions.

Rule of thumb: Only catch application exception.