Class Throwable
The Throwable class is the superclass of all errors and exceptions in the Java language. Only objects that are instances of this class (or one of its subclasses) are thrown by the Java Virtual Machine or can be thrown by the Java throw statement. Similarly, only this class or one of its subclasses can be the argument type in a catch clause. For the purposes of compile-time checking of exceptions, Throwable and any subclass of Throwable that is not also a subclass of either RuntimeException or Error are regarded as checked exceptions.
Instances of two subclasses, Error and Exception , are conventionally used to indicate that exceptional situations have occurred. Typically, these instances are freshly created in the context of the exceptional situation so as to include relevant information (such as stack trace data).
A throwable contains a snapshot of the execution stack of its thread at the time it was created. It can also contain a message string that gives more information about the error. Over time, a throwable can suppress other throwables from being propagated. Finally, the throwable can also contain a cause: another throwable that caused this throwable to be constructed. The recording of this causal information is referred to as the chained exception facility, as the cause can, itself, have a cause, and so on, leading to a «chain» of exceptions, each caused by another.
One reason that a throwable may have a cause is that the class that throws it is built atop a lower layered abstraction, and an operation on the upper layer fails due to a failure in the lower layer. It would be bad design to let the throwable thrown by the lower layer propagate outward, as it is generally unrelated to the abstraction provided by the upper layer. Further, doing so would tie the API of the upper layer to the details of its implementation, assuming the lower layer’s exception was a checked exception. Throwing a «wrapped exception» (i.e., an exception containing a cause) allows the upper layer to communicate the details of the failure to its caller without incurring either of these shortcomings. It preserves the flexibility to change the implementation of the upper layer without changing its API (in particular, the set of exceptions thrown by its methods).
A second reason that a throwable may have a cause is that the method that throws it must conform to a general-purpose interface that does not permit the method to throw the cause directly. For example, suppose a persistent collection conforms to the Collection interface, and that its persistence is implemented atop java.io . Suppose the internals of the add method can throw an IOException . The implementation can communicate the details of the IOException to its caller while conforming to the Collection interface by wrapping the IOException in an appropriate unchecked exception. (The specification for the persistent collection should indicate that it is capable of throwing such exceptions.)
A cause can be associated with a throwable in two ways: via a constructor that takes the cause as an argument, or via the initCause(Throwable) method. New throwable classes that wish to allow causes to be associated with them should provide constructors that take a cause and delegate (perhaps indirectly) to one of the Throwable constructors that takes a cause. Because the initCause method is public, it allows a cause to be associated with any throwable, even a «legacy throwable» whose implementation predates the addition of the exception chaining mechanism to Throwable .
By convention, class Throwable and its subclasses have two constructors, one that takes no arguments and one that takes a String argument that can be used to produce a detail message. Further, those subclasses that might likely have a cause associated with them should have two more constructors, one that takes a Throwable (the cause), and one that takes a String (the detail message) and a Throwable (the cause).
Class Exception
The class Exception and its subclasses are a form of Throwable that indicates conditions that a reasonable application might want to catch.
The class Exception and any subclasses that are not also subclasses of RuntimeException are checked exceptions. Checked exceptions need to be declared in a method or constructor’s throws clause if they can be thrown by the execution of the method or constructor and propagate outside the method or constructor boundary.
Constructor Summary
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message, cause, suppression enabled or disabled, and writable stack trace enabled or disabled.
Constructs a new exception with the specified cause and a detail message of (cause==null ? null : cause.toString()) (which typically contains the class and detail message of cause ).
Method Summary
Methods declared in class java.lang.Throwable
Methods declared in class java.lang.Object
Constructor Details
Exception
Constructs a new exception with null as its detail message. The cause is not initialized, and may subsequently be initialized by a call to Throwable.initCause(java.lang.Throwable) .
Exception
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message. The cause is not initialized, and may subsequently be initialized by a call to Throwable.initCause(java.lang.Throwable) .
Exception
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message and cause. Note that the detail message associated with cause is not automatically incorporated in this exception’s detail message.
Exception
Constructs a new exception with the specified cause and a detail message of (cause==null ? null : cause.toString()) (which typically contains the class and detail message of cause ). This constructor is useful for exceptions that are little more than wrappers for other throwables (for example, PrivilegedActionException ).
Exception
protected Exception (String message, Throwable cause, boolean enableSuppression, boolean writableStackTrace)
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message, cause, suppression enabled or disabled, and writable stack trace enabled or disabled.
Report a bug or suggest an enhancement
For further API reference and developer documentation see the Java SE Documentation, which contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples. Other versions.
Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates in the US and other countries.
Copyright © 1993, 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA.
All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms and the documentation redistribution policy.
Java exception cause contains
The class Exception and its subclasses are a form of Throwable that indicates conditions that a reasonable application might want to catch. The class Exception and any subclasses that are not also subclasses of RuntimeException are checked exceptions. Checked exceptions need to be declared in a method or constructor’s throws clause if they can be thrown by the execution of the method or constructor and propagate outside the method or constructor boundary.
Constructor Summary
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message, cause, suppression enabled or disabled, and writable stack trace enabled or disabled.
Constructs a new exception with the specified cause and a detail message of (cause==null ? null : cause.toString()) (which typically contains the class and detail message of cause ).
Method Summary
Methods declared in class java.lang.Throwable
Methods declared in class java.lang.Object
Constructor Detail
Exception
Constructs a new exception with null as its detail message. The cause is not initialized, and may subsequently be initialized by a call to Throwable.initCause(java.lang.Throwable) .
Exception
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message. The cause is not initialized, and may subsequently be initialized by a call to Throwable.initCause(java.lang.Throwable) .
Exception
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message and cause. Note that the detail message associated with cause is not automatically incorporated in this exception’s detail message.
Exception
Constructs a new exception with the specified cause and a detail message of (cause==null ? null : cause.toString()) (which typically contains the class and detail message of cause ). This constructor is useful for exceptions that are little more than wrappers for other throwables (for example, PrivilegedActionException ).
Exception
protected Exception(String message, Throwable cause, boolean enableSuppression, boolean writableStackTrace)
Constructs a new exception with the specified detail message, cause, suppression enabled or disabled, and writable stack trace enabled or disabled.
Report a bug or suggest an enhancement
For further API reference and developer documentation see the Java SE Documentation, which contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.
Java is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates in the US and other countries.
Copyright © 1993, 2023, Oracle and/or its affiliates, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA.
All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms and the documentation redistribution policy.