Exception handling - Multimedia Introduction to Programming Using Java - page 310

When method main is called and the throw-statement in it is executed, an
instance of class ArithmeticException is created and the program terminates
with the message "/ by zero" . In fact, the output will be the same as if a divi-
sion by zero had actually occurred.
Not all objects can be thrown. For example, you cannot throw a JFrame :
throw new JFrame(); // This statement is syntactically illegal
Only objects that are of class Throwable (or its subclasses) can be thrown.
Figure 10.1 contains an example of a throw-statement. Function mod throws
an IllegalArgumentException if y is 0 , as required by its specification.
Function mod could have been written without this test, in which case an
ArithmeticException would be thrown (if y is 0 ) when the expression x%y is
calculated. But by explicitly throwing the exception, we can give a better mes-
sage.

Get method mod
from page 10-2
of ProgramLive .

10.3 The throwable object

An object can be thrown only if it is an instance of class Throwable , which is in
package java.lang . Figure 10.2 contains the definition of class Throwable . We
explain its components.
Field backtrace automatically contains the call stack at the point where the
abnormal event occurred. Field detailMessage can contain a description of the
error. For example, for the abnormal event division by 0 , this field contains " /
by zero" . Every Throwable object has these two pieces of information.
There are two constructors; one allows the caller to give the detail message.
Getter method getMessage returns the detail message, and method get-
LocalizedMessage can be overridden to return a message that is particular to a
subclass. The usual method toString is there as well.
We do not show methods that deal with saving and printing the call stack.

Lesson
page 10-2

The root of all throwable classes

Throwable

The root of serious errors that cause termination

Error

VirtualMachineError
OutOfMemoryError
StackOverflowError
Exception

The root of exceptions that may be caught and processed

The root of exceptions that need not be checked

RuntimeException

ArithmeticException
IllegalArgumentException
NumberFormatException
IOException
ClassNotFoundException

Figure 10.3: The hierarchy of throwable classes (a partial list)