CSCI 235 Predefined Exceptions in Java

This is a very limited listing of the predefined errors and exceptions that you are most likely to encounter in programs for this class. In this listing, indentation is used to indicate the subtype relationships.

• Throwable
  • Error
    • StackOverflowError
    • AssertionError
  • Exception
    • InterruptedException
    • java.io.IOException
      • java.io.EOFException
      • java.io.FileNotFoundException
    • RuntimeException
      • ArithmeticException
      • IllegalArgumentException
      • IllegalStateException
      • IndexOutOfBoundsException
        • ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException
        • StringIndexOutOfBoundsException
      • java.util.NoSuchElementException
        • java.util.InputMismatchException
    • NullPointerException

In the list above, some of the names begin with java.util or java.io; you will need to import those names to use them.

The indentation in the list above indicates subclass relationships; the fact that ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException is indented under IndexOutOfBoundsException indicates that the former is a subclass of the latter. To put that more simply, an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException will match as any of ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException, IndexOutOfBoundsException, RuntimeException, or Exception.

Keep the following in mind:

• Subtypes of Error usually indicate that the program is incorrect: you will not often wish to catch them.
• Any method can throw an Error or RuntimeException. Any other exceptions must appear in the throws clause of the method declaration.
• When you define your own exception classes, they will probably be subtypes of Exception, but not of RuntimeException.

Last modified: Mon Dec 2 16:21:15 CST 2013