Saturday, July 12, 2008

EXCEPTION HANDLING

What is exception handling?

When an exception occurs, the system searches for the nearest catch clause that can handle the exception, as determined by the run-time type of the exception. First, the current method is searched for a lexically enclosing try statement, and the associated catch clauses of the try statement are considered in order. If that fails, the method that called the current method is searched for a lexically enclosing try statement that encloses the point of the call to the current method. This search continues until a catch clause is found that can handle the current exception, by naming an exception class that is of the same class, or a base class, of the run-time type of the exception being thrown. A catch clause that doesn't name an exception class can handle any exception.
Once a matching catch clause is found, the system prepares to transfer control to the first statement of the catch clause. Before execution of the catch clause begins, the system first executes, in order, any finally clauses that were associated with try statements more nested that than the one that caught the exception.
Exceptions that occur during destructor execution are worth special mention. If an exception occurs during destructor execution, and that exception is not caught, then the execution of that destructor is terminated and the destructor of the base class (if any) is called. If there is no base class (as in the case of the object type) or if there is no base class destructor, then the exception is discarded.

Will finally block get executed if the exception had not occurred?

Yes.

Can multiple catch blocks be executed?

No, once the proper catch code fires off, the control is transferred to the finally block (if there are any), and then whatever follows the finally block.

Why is it a bad idea to throw your own exceptions?

Well, if at that point you know that an error has occurred, then why not write the proper code to handle that error instead of passing a new Exception object to the catch block? Throwing your own exceptions signifies some design flaws in the project.

Will it go to finally block if there is no exception happened?

Ans: Yes. The finally block is useful for cleaning up any resources allocated in the try block. Control is always passed to the finally block regardless of how the try block exits.

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