Java Hierarchy of Exception Classes

• Exceptions/Errors are also objects in Java.
• Root class of all exception/error classes is the Throwable class, which is an immediate sub-class of the Object class.
• Methods are defined in Throwable class to retrieve error message associated with the error/exception and to print the stack trace showing where the error/exception occurs.
• There are two immediate sub classes of class Throwable:

            o Error
            o Exception

• Sub classes of Exception have the suffix Exception.
• Sub classes of Error have the suffix Error (normally).

Error

The sub classes of Error class are basically used for signaling abnormal system conditions like:

• OutOfMemoryError signals that the Java VM has run out of memory and that the garbage collector is unable to claim any free memory.
• StackOverflowError signals a stack overflow in the interpreter.

The errors are, in general, unrecoverable and should not be handled.

Exception

The sub classes of Exception class are, in general recoverable. For example, EOFException signals that a file you have opened has no more data for reading. FileNotFoundException signals that a file you want to open does not exist in the file system.

Hierarchy of common Exceptions