Question

I am trying to add a link to an “about” window in an application that will link to my Github. I sort of know the process, however, it seems to complicated for what it does, with all the error catching I have to put in. As I am certain the URI syntax is correct, is there any way to skip this catch? This variable stays final, and unless the syntax of resource location changes, it should be OK

Code:

        //TODO: Simplify?
        String gitLocation = "https://github.com/DanubeRS";
        try {
            final URI gitUri = new URI(gitLocation);

            //Add the github button action (link to site)
            githubButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
                @Override
                public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                    try {
                        Desktop.getDesktop().browse(gitUri.resolve(gitUri));  //Try to open URL
                    } catch (IOException e1) {
                        //URI unresolvable
                        e1.printStackTrace();
                    }
                }
            });
        } catch (URISyntaxException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

Answer 1

You could use the convenience method URI.create(String str), which wraps the URISyntaxException with an IllegalArgumentException. From the JavaDoc:

This method is provided for use in situations where it is known that
the given string is a legal URI, for example for URI constants
declared within in a program, and so it would be considered a
programming error for the string not to parse as such. The
constructors, which throw URISyntaxException directly, should be used
situations where a URI is being constructed from user input or from
some other source that may be prone to errors.

The IOException thrown from Desktop.browse() indicates that there’s no default browser set up. You should probably handle that gracefully by notifying the user.