Difference between Error and Exception in Java?

Question

I have referred many books and even Java docs provided by Oracle but still I have a confusion that what makes Error class different from Exception class. Can you guys please explain this as we can catch and handle both.

class Handle{
     public static void main(String args[]){
         try{
             int k = 10/0;
         }catch(Exception e){
         }
         try{
             //some statement
         }catch(Error e){
         }
     }
}

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5813614/what-is-difference-between-errors-and-exceptions — Sasikumar Murugesan, Sep 10 '15 at 06:33
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/912334/differences-betweeen-exception-and-error — andreicovaciu, Sep 10 '15 at 06:33

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 10 '15 at 06:32

2

It's a semantic difference. An Error is something that is impossible to survive from (think OutOfMemoryError), whereas an Exception could possibly be handled somehow.

answered Sep 10 '15 at 06:32

Kayaman

72,141
5
83
121

but we can catch the error and inside the catch we can use the garbage collector call to free the memory – Harshit Gupta Sep 10 '15 at 06:33
@HarshitGupta Not really. The garbage collector will attempt to free any possible memory before throwing an `OOME`, so catching it would be useless. – Kayaman Sep 10 '15 at 06:35
So there is no other difference then this? – Harshit Gupta Sep 10 '15 at 06:38
There's no functional difference, no. It's just an agreement that `Errors` are serious and `Exceptions` are less serious. – Kayaman Sep 10 '15 at 06:39
Ok can you help me with one more question?http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32455405/ – Harshit Gupta Sep 10 '15 at 06:40

Difference between Error and Exception in Java?

1 Answers1