when is it required to add throws in Java?

Question

in following example, Eclipse does not ask me to add ' throws EmptyStackException'

public E pop() {
  if (stack.isEmpty()) {
    throw new EmptyStackException();
  }
  ...
}

However, in following example, 'throws Exception' is required

public E pop() throws Exception {
  if(stack.isEmpty()) {
    throw new Exception();
...
}

Is there any specific rules on when should I add throws or not?

I suggest you read http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/exceptions/ — Jon Skeet, Mar 16 '14 at 17:50
Related: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6115896/java-checked-vs-unchecked-exception-explanation — Jason C, Mar 16 '14 at 17:55

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 16 '14 at 18:07

This is the difference between checked exceptions and unchecked exceptions.

A checked exception is part of a method signature, and is required to either be caught or declared to be thrown when the method is used. They are subclasses of Exception themselves.

Some examples include a particular constructor of Scanner, or more formally, Scanner#<init>(File file).

Checked exceptions are declared to be thrown typically because it is possible to recover from the exception. For instance, if you were to create a Scanner that read lines from a file, and the file didn't exist, what could you reasonably do besides ask them to re-specify the location?

An example:

Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
boolean found = false;
String path = sc.nextLine();
while(!found) {
    try {
        sc = new Scanner(new File(path));
        found = true;
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        System.out.println(path + " was not valid.  Please try again.");
        path = sc.nextLine();
    }
}

An unchecked exception is not part of a method signature, and may be thrown for any particular reason. They are subclasses of RuntimeException.

One of the most common you'll encounter would be NullPointerException. This particular exception could occur in the most innocuous of ways, such as:

Integer i = null;

System.out.println(i + 2); // NPE on unboxing

It is not typically expected for one to be able to recover from the exception; in layman's terms, something has gone wrong with the assumptions made about the flow of code. That is to say, writing this is almost certainly a code smell:

Integer i = null;
try {
    System.out.println(i + 2);
} catch(NullPointerException e) {
    System.out.println("i was null!?");
}

Most modern frameworks will allow you to specify a specific state that your application enters when such an error occurs - if it's a web driven application, you can have those sorts of runtime exceptions handled as a 500.

There is also Error, which is a special case of unchecked exceptions - you should definitely not recover from this, since it's indicated that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong with the JVM.

For instance, this is something you don't want to see:

public void recurse() {
    try {
        recurse();
    } catch (StackOverflowError e) {
        System.out.println("We went in too deep.");
    }
}

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:08

3

EmptyStackException extends RuntimeException which is an unchecked exception while Exception is a checked exception.

Java only obliges you to catch checked exceptions. You can read more about this here, here and here.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:08

Community

1
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answered Mar 16 '14 at 17:52

Vlad Schnakovszki

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 16 '14 at 17:51

You don't need to declare/handle RuntimeExceptions in a method signature, but, You have to declare/handle Checked Exception, if the method throws it and not handled inside the method.

In your case, EmptyStackException is a RuntimeException, so, you don't need to handle/declare it in the method, but Exception is a checked one, so, you must need to either handle it or declare it in the method signature

when is it required to add throws in Java?

3 Answers3