Is it necessary to use throw keyword with Throwables.propagate(e)? - java

In this code, do I need the throw keyword in order to propagate the exception?
try {
//try something
} catch (Exception e) {
throw Throwables.propagate(e);
}
The Throwables documentation says that this method always throws an exception - is adding the throw superfluous? Could I have written the following instead?
try {
//try something
} catch (Exception e) {
Throwables.propagate(e);
}

The javadoc also states
The RuntimeException return type is only for client code to make Java
type system happy in case a return value is required by the enclosing
method.
and then provides this example
T doSomething() {
try {
return someMethodThatCouldThrowAnything();
} catch (IKnowWhatToDoWithThisException e) {
return handle(e);
} catch (Throwable t) {
throw Throwables.propagate(t);
}
}
In other words, the return type (RuntimeException) is necessary so you can use the method in return or throws statements.
In the above example, if you omitted the throw in the last catch block, then the Java compiler would report an error because it cannot guarantee that a value will be returned from that catch block. A return or throws instead indicate that the method completes at that point, abruptly.

Related

Handling Multiple Generic Exceptions

I am running a multithreaded testing program and would like to add some extra details to exceptions throw for it to be clear which thread is the one that threw the exception. In order to do this I created the following generic function to take any Callable function as a parameter and return it's value; however, in the case it throws an exception, it is caught and extra details are added to the Exception message and then thrown again for the calling function to catch.
public <U> U enhanceThrownException(#NonNull Callable<U> callable) throws Exception {
try {
return callable.call();
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new Exception(controller.getFullScenarioMessage(e.getLocalizedMessage()), e);
}
}
Now this works great for what I needed it for, however, I do not want calling functions to need to catch a generic Exception. I wanted to clearly specify exceptions that I know the function will throw, so I added to the code and have this:
public <U, V extends Exception> U enhanceThrownException(#NonNull Callable<U> callable,
Class<V> exceptionType) throws V {
try {
return callable.call();
} catch (Exception e) {
try {
throw (V) e.getClass().getDeclaredConstructor(String.class, Throwable.class)
.newInstance(controller.getFullScenarioMessage(e.getLocalizedMessage()), e);
} catch (ReflectiveOperationException rException) {
e.printStackTrace();
throw new RuntimeException(controller.getFullScenarioMessage(rException.getLocalizedMessage()), rException);
}
}
}
This works perfectly for a function that has only one throwable exception, but if I want to handle multiple thrown exceptions, how would I go about doing so? Is it necessary to do this, or would using the generic Exception case be enough? Also, if I can specify, is it possible to get the possible thrown exceptions form the function itself without the user needing to input them as parameters? The following does not work because all entered Exceptions would have to be of the same type, which is kind of useless since different Exception derivatives are of different types.
public <U, V extends Exception> U enhanceThrownException(#NonNull Callable<U> callable,
Class<V> exceptionType,
Class<V>... exceptionTypes) throws V {
try {
return callable.call();
} catch (Exception e) {
try {
throw (V) e.getClass().getDeclaredConstructor(String.class, Throwable.class)
.newInstance(controller.getFullScenarioMessage(e.getLocalizedMessage()), e);
} catch (ReflectiveOperationException rException) {
e.printStackTrace();
throw new RuntimeException(controller.getFullScenarioMessage(rException.getLocalizedMessage()), rException);
}
}
}
(Update)
After looking further into this, I realized I may have been overthinking it all. I simply created an custom Exception class:
public class EnhancedException extends Exception {
public EnhancedException(String message, Throwable cause) {
super(message, cause);
}
}
And then I edited the previous code to:
public <U> U enhanceThrownException(#NonNull Callable<U> callable) throws EnhancedException {
try {
return callable.call();
} catch (Exception e) {
throw new EnhancedException(controller.getFullScenarioMessage(e.getLocalizedMessage()), e);
}
}
If needed, the calling functions can check for this custom Exception and then further check if the cause is an Exception it is specifically looking for. This would actually just work with a generic Exception, but maybe there are some uses for having a custom Exception class.
I might have solved my own issue, but if anyone believes there is a better approach or just has some good programming practice advice, I'm all ears.

Common catch block for two methods with return type?

I have two methods as :
ApiResponse methodA(){
try{
.....
.....
}
catch(Exception e){
handleException(e) // getting error here as return is missing
}
}
There is methodB which does different work but same catch block as above.
private void handleException(Exception e){
if (ex instanceof Exception_A) {
throw new Service_Exception_A();
}
else if (ex instanceof Exception_B) {
throw new Service_Exception_B();
}
else if (ex instanceof Exception_C) {
throw new Service_Exception_C();
}
.......
......
else{
throw ex;
}
Now I am getting the error where handleException() method is called in MethodA and Method B saying that "return statement is missing"
If i copy paste the catch block in each of method, then it works fine,but isnt java intelligent enough to see that the handleException will always throw exception, so no need of return statement in catch block of method A and method B.What am I missing here and how can I get this work?
You should change handleException to be something like:
private <T> T handleException(Exception e){
// ...
}
this way the compiler will check that you only throw exceptions and do not return any values in the body of handleException method, because there is no way to construct a new instance of abstract type T (you can return null, but null is always an explicit escape hatch in Java).
In your methodA and methodB you should return in the catch-block:
ApiResponse methodA(){
try {
...
} catch(Exception e) {
return handleException(e);
}
}

Is return statement optional in a method that has return type not void, but throws an Exception?

Here I have a method that is expected to return a boolean :
static boolean display()
{
}
The compilation fails as This method must return a result of type boolean.
However, if the method is modified as below:
static boolean display()
{
try{
throw new ArithmeticException();
}
catch(ArithmeticException e)
{
throw e;
}
finally
{
System.out.println(finally);
}
}
Why does not the compilation fail anymore even though I have not added any return statement.
If in the catch block I do not include a throw statement, the compilation fails again with the previous reason.
The Java compiler does a (limited) flow analysis and when it can determine that all flows of control lead to an exception you don't need a return.
To understand try putting return true; at the end of the method. Then you should get a error calling unreachable statement.
This happens because your method always throwing an exception. So at the end you don't need to return a value, because it already throwing the exception before that and ends the method
You: Why does not the compilation fail anymore even though I have not added any return statement?
Answer: When you explicitly throw an exception in try block, and again
in the catch block you explicitly throw an exception, the compiler
does not give an error because you are throwing an exception
explicitly using the throw keyword, which terminates abruptly the
normal flow of code and stops the execution of all the subsequent code
in display method and control gets directly transfer to the calling
method
public class StackOverFlowReturn {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
System.out.println(display());
} catch (Exception ae) {
System.out.println("Arithmetic Exception");
}
}
static boolean display() {
try {
throw new ArithmeticException();
} catch (ArithmeticException e) {
throw e;
} finally {
System.out.println("finally");
}
}
}
Output:
finally
Arithmetic Exception
In catch block if you code return instead of explicit throw of
exception then
public class StackOverFlowReturn {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
System.out.println(display());
} catch (Exception ae) {
System.out.println("Arithmetic Exception");
}
}
static boolean display() {
try {
throw new ArithmeticException();
} catch (ArithmeticException e) {
return true;
} finally {
System.out.println("finally");
}
}
}
Output:
finally
true
You: If in the catch block I do not include a throw statement, the compilation fails again with the previous reason.
Answer: When you explicitly throw an exception in try block, then it
is not necessary to have an explicit throw in catch block. You can
code as follows:
public class StackOverFlowReturn {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(display());
}
static boolean display() {
try {
throw new ArithmeticException();
} catch (ArithmeticException e) {
System.out.println("Arithmetic Exception");
} finally {
System.out.println("finally");
}
return true;
}
}
Output:
Arithmetic Exception
finally
true

Compiler does not complain that I catch an exception that can never be thrown

I am reading a More precise rethrows in java 7 http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/language/catch-multiple.html which says
In detail, in Java SE 7 and later, when you declare one or more
exception types in a catch clause, and rethrow the exception handled
by this catch block, the compiler verifies that the type of the
rethrown exception meets the following conditions:
The try block is able to throw it.
There are no other preceding catch blocks that can handle it.
It is a subtype or supertype of one of the catch clause's exception parameters.
so i wrote a program to test it .
public class MorePreciseRethrow {
public static void main(String args[]){
try {
foo("First");
} catch (FirstException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (SecondException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static void foo(String exceptionName) throws FirstException, SecondException{
try{
if(StringUtils.equals("First",exceptionName)){
throw new FirstException();
}
}catch(Exception e){
throw e;
}
}
}
class FirstException extends Exception{
}
class SecondException extends Exception{
}
but this doesn't generate even a compiler warning with jdk7.
Now my try block is never able to throw SecondException, but my compiler didn't check it . Is the mentioned line in doc is wrong or am i doing some mistake ?
The compiler only checks if the method header
private static void foo(String exceptionName) throws FirstException, SecondException
declairs thr exception.
You can have multiple implementations of methods so one implementation can throw the exeption and one not. but both must bedeclaired.
In java, there is no requirement that the code in a method that declares that it throws an exception actually be able to throw it.
This makes sense, because the method may be implementing an interface, but the implementation happens to not throw it, or it could allow for future expansion to an implementation/subclass that does throw it.
In order to get the compilation error that documentation is talking about, you need to use a multiple catch. Something like,
private static void foo(String exceptionName) throws FirstException,
SecondException {
try {
throw new FirstException();
} catch (FirstException | SecondException e) {
throw e;
}
}
Creates an UnreachableCodeBlock for SecondException in Java 7+.

Factory pattern to create Exceptions dynamically

I have created Exception xml and dynamically create and throw exception.
<exception-mappings>
<exception-mapping key="exceptionkey1">
<class-name>com.package.CheckedException</class-name>
<message>Checked Exception Message</message>
</exception-mapping>
<exception-mapping key="exceptionkey2">
<class-name>com.package.UnCheckedException</class-name>
<message>UnChecked Exception Message</message>
</exception-mapping>
I create object of exception dynamically using reflection depending on the exception key.
public static void throwException(final String key) throws CheckedException, UncheckedException {
ExceptionMapping exceptionMapping = exceptionMappings.getExceptionMappings().get(key);
if (exceptionMapping != null) {
try {
Class exceptionClass = Class.forName(exceptionMapping.getClassName());
try {
throw ()exceptionClass.newInstance(); // line X
} catch (InstantiationException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
I want to know which class to typecast at line X so that I do not need to use If/else. Reason behind I do not want to use if else is, it may be possible that in future, there may be new classes added and I do not want to change this code every time new exception is added.
My base logic is my service layer will throw either CheckedException or UncheckedException. If CheckedException is thrown, it will be handled by my web layer. Also I can not throw Super parent class Exception or Throwable as my web layer only catch CheckedException. If UncheckedException is thrown, it will display exception page.
Please help me as I am not able to proceed further.
EDIT: Any other solution is also accepted.
Well, in the name of science, here's how you can do it. Would I recommend doing this? By no means. Would I ever do anything remotely like this myself? Probably not.
public class ExceptionFactory {
public static void throwException(String className)
throws CheckedException, UncheckedException {
Class<?> exceptionClass;
try {
exceptionClass = Class.forName(className);
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(e);
}
try {
if (CheckedException.class.isAssignableFrom(exceptionClass)) {
throw exceptionClass.asSubclass(CheckedException.class)
.newInstance();
} else if (UncheckedException.class
.isAssignableFrom(exceptionClass)) {
throw exceptionClass.asSubclass(UncheckedException.class)
.newInstance();
} else {
throw new IllegalArgumentException(
"Not a valid exception type: "
+ exceptionClass.getName());
}
} catch (InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException e) {
throw new IllegalStateException(e);
}
}
public static void main(String... args) {
try {
throwException("CheckedException");
} catch (CheckedException e) {
System.out.println(e);
} catch (UncheckedException e) {
System.out.println(e);
}
}
}
class CheckedException extends Exception {
}
class UncheckedException extends Exception {
}
I don't see the point of this factory. Even if you get it to work (which you can by having all the exceptions thrown by it being sub-classes of a single ancestor class), its usage would be something like this :
....
if (somethingInWrong) {
ExceptionFactory.throwException("SomeKey");
}
....
For each key you'd still have to create an exception class to be mapped to it. Lets say SomeKeyException is the exception mapped to "SomeKey".
In that case, it's much more type safe to simply write :
....
if (somethingInWrong) {
throw new SomeKeyException();
}
....
This way the compiler checks that you are creating an exception class that it actually knows. If you use your Factory, you might use some String that is not a valid key, and the compiler won't be able to do anything about it. Only in runtime your Factory will fail to find an exception mapped to the invalid key.
There's no need to use reflection (as I commented above you shouldn't use reflection unless you really have to...).
You can implement the exceptions class to be something like this:
class MyExceptions {
static void myExceptionsThrower(String key) throws Exception {
if("illegalstate".equals(key)) {
throw new IllegalStateException("that's my IllegalStateException bro!");
}
else if("illegalaccess".equals(key)) {
throw new IllegalAccessException("that's my IllegalAccessException bro!");
}
// etc...
}
}
and use it with:
MyExceptions.myExceptionsThrower(key);
A few tweaks:
public static void throwException(final String key) throws Throwable {
ExceptionMapping exceptionMapping =
exceptionMappings.getExceptionMappings().get(key);
if (exceptionMapping != null) {
try {
Class<Throwable> exceptionClass =
(Class<Throwable>)Class.forName(exceptionMapping.getClassName());
try {
throw exceptionClass.cast( exceptionClass.newInstance() ); // line X
} catch (InstantiationException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Here's my entry into this derby. :-)
The other answers have commented on whether this is a reasonable design. I'll set these issues aside for the purpose of this answer.
A couple of my pet peeves are unnecessary warnings (even if suppressed), and exceptions that don't report what actually went wrong. In particular merely printing out a stack trace is usually insufficient. Yes, this is just test code, but when dealing with code like this -- even code that's designed to throw an exception -- one really ought to think about how to deal with errors. In this case I've chosen to represent these kinds of errors as instances of InternalError since the configuration or whatever can be wrong in a variety of ways. Specifically: if the class can't be found, if it is found but isn't a subtype of CheckedException or UncheckedException (or even an ordinary class), or if doesn't have a no-arg constructor or if it's inaccessible.
Another issue with some of the proposed solutions is that if the exception class name is "java.lang.InstantiationException" (or one of the other internally-caught exceptions) an instance of this exception type might be constructed, thrown, and then caught internally, resulting in a stack trace but not actually throwing the requested exception. I've avoided that by linearizing the logic instead of nesting try-catch blocks.
Finally, I extracted the exception-creating code into a separate method so that it can be used for both the checked and unchecked cases. This can be simplified considerably if you rearrange the exception hierarchy to allow only a single root exception (I recommend unchecked) and have exception subtypes that are handled at the web layer or are thrown out to the caller.
static void throwException(final String exClassName) throws CheckedException, UncheckedException {
Class<?> clazz;
try {
clazz = Class.forName(exClassName);
} catch (ClassNotFoundException cnfe) {
throw new InternalError(exClassName, cnfe);
}
if (CheckedException.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz)) {
throw newException(clazz.asSubclass(CheckedException.class));
} else if (UncheckedException.class.isAssignableFrom(clazz)) {
throw newException(clazz.asSubclass(UncheckedException.class));
} else {
throw new InternalError(exClassName + " is not a valid exception");
}
}
static <X extends Throwable> X newException(Class<X> clazz) {
X x;
try {
x = clazz.newInstance();
} catch (InstantiationException|IllegalAccessException e) {
throw new InternalError("creating instance of " + clazz, e);
}
return x;
}
This could be helpful to create a custom precondition exception to avoid multiple if conditions.
Creates a precondition exception while checking for null pointer.
class Preconditions {
/**
* <p>
* Checks the value to be null and if null throws a new Exception with the message given.
* Used to reduce checking if conditions for complexity.
* </p>
* #param val - val to check null
* #param exceptionClass - exception class to be thrown
* #param args - message to be called for throwing exception
* #throws Throwable - Common Throwable Exception.
*/
public static void checkNotNull(final Object val, final Class<?> exceptionClass, final Object ...args) throws Throwable {
Class<?>[] argTypes = new Class<?>[args.length];
Arrays.stream(args).map(WithIndex.indexed()).forEach(arg ->argTypes[arg.index()] = arg.value().getClass());
if (null == val) throw (Throwable) exceptionClass.getConstructor(argTypes).newInstance(args);
}
}
Then you can use it in code with:
PreConditionUtil.checkNotNull(objectToCheck, CustomException.class, ErrorCode, "your error message", ...);

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