Exception Handling - Java: A Beginner's Guide - page 438

Java programs, most exceptions derived from RuntimeException are automatically avail-
able. Furthermore, they need not be included in any method's throws list. In the language
of Java, these are called unchecked exceptions because the compiler does not check to
see if a method handles or throws these exceptions. The unchecked exceptions defined in
java.lang are listed in Table 9-2 . Table 9-3 lists those exceptions defined by java.lang that
must be included in a method's throws list if that method can generate one of these excep-
tions and does not handle it itself. These are called checked exceptions . In addition to the
exceptions in java.lang , Java defines several other types of exceptions that relate to other
packages, such as IOException mentioned earlier.
Table 9-2 The Unchecked Exceptions Defined in java.lang