10 Exception handling Best Practices in Java Programming

Exception handling is an important part of writing robust Java applications. It’s a non-functional requirement for any application, to gracefully handle any erroneous condition like resource not available, invalid input, null input, and so on. Java provides several exception handling features, in built-in the language itself in form of try, catch, and finally keyword.  Java programming language also allows you to create new exceptions and throw them using  throw and throws keyword. In reality, Exception handling is more than knowing the syntax. Writing a robust code is an art more than science, and here we will discuss few Java best practices related to Exception handling.

These Java best practices are followed even in standard JDK libraries, and several open-source codes to better deal with Errors and Exceptions. This also comes as a handy guide of writing robust code for Java programmers.

Exception Handling Java Best Practices

Here is my collection of 10 Java best practices to write the Exception handling code in Java. There have been both applause and criticism of checked Exception in Java, which is a language feature to force dealing with Exceptions. In this article, we will look to minimize the use of checked Exception and learn when to use checked vs unchecked exceptions in Java as well.

1. Use Checked Exception for Recoverable error and Unchecked Exception for programming error.

Choosing between checked and unchecked exception is always been confusing for Java programmers. Checked exceptions ensure that you provide an exception handling code for error conditions, which is away from language to enforcing you for writing robust code, but same time it also add lots of clutter into code and makes it unreadable.

 Also, it seems reasonable to catch the exception and do something if you have alternatives or recovery strategies.  See checked vs unchecked exceptions for more information on choosing between checked and RuntimeException in Java.

2. Close or release resources in finally block

This is a well-known best practice in Java and quite a standard, while dealing with networking and IO classes. Closing resources in finally block guarantees that precious and scarce resources are released properly in case of normal and aborted execution, guaranteed by finally block. 

From Java 7, the language has more interesting automatic resource management or ARM blocks, which can do this for you. 

Nevertheless, always remember to close resources in final block, which is important to release limited resources like FileDescriptors, used in case of both socket and files.

3. Including cause of Exception in stack-trace

Many times Java library and open source code wraps one Exception into another, when one exception is thrown due to result of another exception. Its become extremely important to log or print the cause of root exception. 

Java Exception class provides getCause() method to retrieve cause which can be used to provide more information about the root cause of Exception. This Java best practice helps a lot while debugging or troubleshooting an issue. 

Always remember to pass the original Exception, into the constructor of new Exception, if you are wrapping one exception into another. If you are new to Java and don't know how to throw Exception, you can also see these Java Programming courses for beginners to learn more about Java fundamental concepts. 

4. Always provide meaning full message on Exception

message of Exception is the most important place, where you can point out cause of problem because this is the first place every programmer looks upon. Always try to provide precise and factual information here. 

For example, compare these two Exception messages for IllegalArgumentException :

message 1: "Incorrect argument for method"

message 2: "Illegal value for ${argument}: ${value}

first one just says that argument is illegal or incorrect, but second one include both name of argument and its illegal value which is important to point out cause of error. Always follow this Java best practice, when writing code for handling exceptions and errors in Java.

5. Avoid overusing Checked Exception

Checked Exception has there advantage in terms of enforcement, but at same time it also litters the code and makes it unreadable by obscuring business logic. You can minimize this by not overusing checked Exception which result in much cleaner code. 

You can also use newer Java 7 features like one catch block for multiple exceptions and automatic resource management, to remove some duplication.

6. Converting Checked Exception into RuntimeException

This is one of the technique used to limit use of checked Exception in many of frameworks like Spring ,where most of checked Exception, which stem from JDBC is wrapped into DataAccessException, an unchecked Exception. 

This Java best practice provides benefits, in terms of  restricting specific exception into specific modules, like SQLException into DAO layer and throwing meaningful RuntimeException to client layer.

7. Remember Exceptions are costly in terms of performance

One thing which is worth remembering is that Exceptions are costly, and can slow down your code. Suppose you have a method that is reading from ResultSet and often throws SQLException then move to the next element, will be much slower than normal code which doesn't throw that Exception. 

So minimizing catching unnecessary Exceptions and moving on, without fixing their root cause. Don’t just throw and catch exceptions, if you can use a boolean variable to indicate the result of the operation, which may result in a cleaner and performance solution. Avoid unnecessary Exception handling by fixing the root cause.

8. Avoid empty catch blocks

Nothing is worse than an empty catch block, because it not just hides the Errors and Exception, but also may leave your object unusable or corrupt state. Empty catch block only makes sense, if you are absolutely sure that Exception is not going to affect object state on anyways, but still, its better to log any error that comes during program execution. 

This is not a Java best practice, but a most common practice while writing Exception handling code in Java. You can also see these advanced Java courses to learn more about common best practices in Java. 

9. Use Standard Exceptions

Our ninth Java best practice advice on using standard and inbuilt Java Exceptions. Using standard Exception instead of creating own Exception every now and then is much better in terms of maintenance and consistency. 

Reusing the standard exception makes code more readable because most of  Java developers are familiar with standard RuntimeException from JDK like, IllegalStateException, IllegalArgumentException or NullPointerException, and they will immediately be able to know purpose of Exception, instead of looking out another place on code or docs to find out the purpose of user-defined Exceptions.

10. Document Exception is thrown by any method

Java provides throw and throws keyword to throw an exception and in javadoc you have @throw to document possible Exception thrown by any method. This becomes increasingly important if you are writing API or public interface. With proper documentation of Exception thrown by any method, you can potentially alert anyone who is using it.

That's all on Java best practices to follow while handling Exceptions in Java. Do let us know what practices you follow while writing Exception handling code in Java.

Related Java Best Practices tutorials from Javarevisited blog

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Let me know in comments how did you find these best practices? Do you use them? If you have any other best practices which you have learned or acquired by your own experience then please share in comments.