Question

Why can’t java gracefully return some value with a division by zero and instead has to throw an Exception?

I am getting an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException:0 This is because because damageTaken is actually an array of values that stores many different ‘damages’.

In java I’m trying to create a progress bar. Our example: damage incurred, in a racing game, by setting the value for height as a percentage of maxmimum damage allowed before gameover.

At the start of the program damageTaken = 0;

(damageTaken / maximumDamage)

will give numbers between 0 – 1.

Then I just multiply that by the height of the progress bar, to create a fill bar of the appropriate height.

The program crashes. I want the progress bar to be of zero height!

Answer 1

You are not dividing by zero, you are dividing zero by something.

It is completely allowed to take two halves of zero. The answer is zero. Say you have zero apples. You split your zero apples between Alice and Bob. Alice and Bob now both have zero apples.

But, you cannot divide by zero. Say you have two apples. Now, you want to give these apples to zero people. How many apples does each person get? The answer is undefined, and so division by zero is impossible.