Question

I have a query on handling error conditions with Java Swing.

I am using Netbeans to develop a simple Java Swing app. It is to load in a text file, then run calculation based on the numbers found in the text file. The main Swing class holds the JFrames and JPanels.

I have the file loading code as a separate class file. It returns the number of lines read and a List of numbers back to the main Swing app.

I realised that if the file reading fails (i.e. try -> catch (Exception ex)), the entire app will crash. What’s the best way to handle errors resulting from my scenario above? That is to say, the file loading code crashes and I don’t want the entire program to crash. I want the program to say the file is corrupted and wait for user to load new file.

Any thoughts?

Yakult

Answer 1

when you catch the exception, run:

JOptionPane.showMessageDialog("File is corrupted. Please select a new file.");

Then display the file dialog again.

It’s probably best to do this as a loop that continues while the the file is not valid. If there is a corruption, then rather than throwing an exception, set a boolean flag and loop as long as the flag is set. That way, when a good file is found, the while loop will terminate.

Example:

public static void main(String[] args){
    boolean goodFile = false;

    while (!goodFile){
        JFileChooser chooser = new JFileChooser();
        chooser.showOpenDialog();

        goodFile = processFile(chooser.getSelectedFile());
    }
}

private boolean processFile(File file){
    //do you stuff with the file

    //return true if the processing works properly, and false otherwise    
}