Using Exceptions

Using Exceptions

Exception handling provides a powerful mechanism for controlling complex programs that have many dynamic run-time characteristics. It is important to think of try, throw, and catch as clean ways to handle errors and unusual boundary conditions in your program’s logic.

Unlike some other languages in which error return codes are used to indicate failure, Java uses exceptions. Thus, when a method can fail, have it throw an exception. This is a cleaner way to handle failure modes.

One last point: Java’s exception-handling statements should not be considered a general mechanism for nonlocal branching. If you do so, it will only confuse your code and make it hard to maintain.