Advantages of the Exception-Handling Mechanism

The main advantages of the exception-handling mechanism in object oriented programming over the traditional error-handling mechanisms are the following:

• The separation of error-handling code from normal code unlike traditional programming languages, there is a clear-cut distinction between the normal code and the error-handling code. This separation results in less complex and more readable (normal) code. Further, it is also more efficient, in the sense that the checking of errors in the normal execution path is not needed, and thus requires fewer CPU cycles.

• A logical grouping of error types Exceptions can be used to group together errors that are related. This will enable us to handle related exceptions using a single exception handler. When an exception is thrown, an object of one of the exception classes is passed as a parameter. Objects are instances of classes, and classes fall into an inheritance hierarchy in Java. This hierarchy can be used to logically group exceptions. Thus, an exception handler can catch exceptions of the class specified by its parameter, or can catch exceptions of any of its sub-classes.

• The ability to propagate errors up the call stack Another important advantage of exception handling in object oriented programming is the ability to propagate errors up the call stack. Exception handling allows contextual information to be captured at the point where the error occurs and to propagate it to a point where it can be effectively handled. This is different from traditional error-handling mechanisms in which the return values are checked and propagated to the calling function.

The following is a list of exceptions under the Throwable class:

Throwable

Error

AWTError

LinkageError

ClassCircularityError

ClassFormatError

Exception InInitializerError

IncompatibleClassChangeError

NoClassDefFoundError

UnsatisfiedLinkError

VerifyError

ThreadDeath

VirtualMachineError

InternalError

OutOfMemoryError

StackOverflowError

UnknownError

Exception

AclNotFoundException

ActivationException

UnknownGroupException

UnknownObjectException

AlreadyBoundException

ApplicationException

AWTException

BadLocationException

ClassNotFoundException

CloneNotSupportedException

ServerCloneException

DataFormatException

ExpandVetoException

FontFormatException

GeneralSecurityException

CertificateException

CRLException

DigestException

InvalidAlgoorithmParameterException

InvalidKeySpecException

InvalidParameterSpecException

Key Exception

KeyStoreException

NoSuchAlgorithmException

NoSuchProviderException

SignatureException

UnrecoverableKeyException

IllegalAccessException

InstantiationException

IntrospectionException

InvalidMidiDataException

InvocationTargetException

IOException

ChangedCharSetException

CharConversionException

EOFException

FileNotFoundException

Interrupted 0 Exception

MalformedURLException

ObjectStreamException

ProtocolException

RemoteException

SocketException

SyncFailedException

UnknownHostException

UnknownServiceException

UnsupportedEncodingException

UTFDataFormatException

ZipExcept

LastOwnerException

LineUnavailableException

MidiUnavailableException

MimeTypeParseException

NamingException

AttributeInUseException

ArtributeModificationException

CannotProceedException

CommunicationException

ConfigurationException

ContextNotEmptyException

InsufficientResourcesException

InterruptedNamingException

InvalidAttributeldentifierException

InvalidAttributesException

InvalidAttributeValueException

InvalidNameException

InvalidSearchControlsException

InvalidSearchFilterException

LimitExceededException

LinkException

NameAlreadyBoundException

NameNotFoundException

NamingSecurityException

NoInitialContextException

NoSuchAttributeException

NotContextException

OperationNotSupportedException

ReferralException

Schema ViolationException

ServiceUnavailableException

NoninvertibleTransformException

NoSuchFieldException

NoSuchMethodException

NotBoundException

NotOwnerException

ParseException

PartialResultException

PrinterException

PrinterAbortException           

PrinterIOException

PrivilegedActionException

RemarshalException

RuntimeException

ArithmeticException

ArrayStoreException

CannotRedoException

CannotUndoException

ClassCastException

CMMException

ConcurrentModificationException

EmptyStackException

IllegalArgumentException

IllegalMonitorStateException

IllegalPathStateException

IllegalState Exception

ImagingOpException

IndexOutOfBoundsException

MissingResourceException

NegativeArraySizeException

NoSuchElementException

NullPointerException

ProfileDataException

ProviderException

RasterFormatException

SecurityException

SystemException

UndeclaredThrowableException

UnsupportedOperationException

SQLException

BatchUpdateException

SQLWarning

TooManyListenersException

UnsupportedAudioFileException

UnsupportedFlavorException

UnsupportedLookAndFeelException

UserException

AlreadyBound

BadKind

Bounds

CannotProceed

InconsistentTypeCode

Invalid

InvalidName

InvalidName

InvalidSeq

InvalidValue

NotEmpty

NotFound

PolicyError

TypeMismatch

UnknownUserException

WrongTransaction