Exception thrown in catch and finally clause

user_318937 0
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On a question for Java at the university, there was this snippet of code:

class MyExc1 extends Exception {}
class MyExc2 extends Exception {}
class MyExc3 extends MyExc2 {}

public class C1 {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        try {
            System.out.print(1);
            q();
        }
        catch (Exception i) {
            throw new MyExc2();
        }
        finally {
            System.out.print(2);
            throw new MyExc1();
        }
    }

    static void q() throws Exception {
        try {
            throw new MyExc1();
        }
        catch (Exception y) {
        }
        finally {
            System.out.print(3);
            throw new Exception();
        }
    }
}

I was asked to give its output. I answered 13Exception in thread main MyExc2, but the correct answer is 132Exception in thread main MyExc1. Why is it that? I just can't understand where does MyExc2 go.

exception java
12 Answers

The logic is clear till finish printing out 13. Then the exception thrown in q() is caught by catch (Exception i) in main() and a new MyEx2() is ready to be thrown. However, before throwing the exception, the finally block have to be executed first. Then the output becomes 132 and finally asks to thrown another exception new MyEx1().

As a method cannot throw more than one Exception, it will always throw the latest Exception. In other words, if both catch and finally blocks try to throw Exception, then the Exception in catch is swallowed and only the exception in finally will be thrown.

Thus, in this program, Exception MyEx2 is swallowed and MyEx1 is thrown. This Exception is thrown out of main() and no longer caught, thus JVM stops and the final output is 132Exception in thread main MyExc1.

In essence, if you have a finally in a try/catch clause, a finally will be executed AFTER catching the exception, but BEFORE throwing any caught exception, and ONLY the lastest exception would be thrown in the end.

user_90575300

It is well known that the finally block is executed after the the try and catch and is always executed.... But as you saw it's a little bit tricky sometimes check out those code snippet below and you will that the return and throw statements don't always do what they should do in the order that we expect theme to.

Cheers.

/////////////Return dont always return///////

try{

    return "In Try";

}

finally{

    return "In Finally";

}

////////////////////////////////////////////


////////////////////////////////////////////    
while(true) { 

    try {

        return "In try";

   } 

   finally{

        break;     

    }          
}              
return "Out of try";      
///////////////////////////////////////////


///////////////////////////////////////////////////

while (true) {     

    try {            

        return "In try";    

     } 
     finally {   

         continue;  

     }                         
}
//////////////////////////////////////////////////

/////////////////Throw dont always throw/////////

try {

    throw new RuntimeException();

} 
finally {

    return "Ouuuups no throw!";

}
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
user_30335680

To handle this kind of situation i.e. handling the exception raised by finally block. You can surround the finally block by try block: Look at the below example in python:

try:
   fh = open("testfile", "w")
   try:
      fh.write("This is my test file for exception handling!!")
   finally:
      print "Going to close the file"
      fh.close()
except IOError:
   print "Error: can\'t find file or read data"
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