Question

I have a GUI application. In my main class I have a method (called createAndShow()) to initialize all my GUI classes. Inside each GUI class, I have static initializer to read properties files(resource bundles or configuration files). If a file or entry is missing or value is wrong, I catch the exception and then throws a MissingResourceException to upper level on purpose. In my createAndShow() method of the main class, I put a try-catch to catch Exception. But somehow JVM refuse to get there. Whenever a file is missing, that MissingResourceException is thrown and then the application just hang. I expected the createAndShow() method will catch that exception and exit gracefully. Is there anything special for exceptions throws from the static initializer?

I am using XP and java 1.6.

Answer 1

Static initializers are invoked by the class loader, not by any user code.

You will not be able to capture those exceptions, and since the classes you need are not able to be loaded, your application will crash.

My recommendation would be to do a Configuration singleton class. You could use What is an efficient way to implement a singleton pattern in Java?. Create an init() or load() method in that class which will be able to throw the exceptions that can be caught in your createAndShow() method.