6.11 The throw Statement

A throw statement is used to cause an exception to be thrown:

The expression in a throw statement must produce a reference to an object that is an instance of the Throwable class or one of its subclasses. Otherwise, the compiler issues an error message. You typically want the expression in a throw statement to produce an object that is an instance of a subclass of the Exception class.

Here is an example of a throw statement:

throw new ProtocolException();

A throw statement causes normal program execution to stop. Control is immediately transferred to the innermost enclosing try statement in the search for a catch clause that can handle the exception. If the innermost try statement cannot handle the exception, the exception propagates up through enclosing statements in the current method. If the current method does not contain a try statement that can handle the exception, the exception propagates up to the invoking method. If this method does not contain an appropriate try statement, the exception propagates up again, and so on. Finally, if no try statement is found to handle the exception, the currently running thread terminates. The termination of a thread is described in Stopping a thread.

As an exception propagates through enclosing try statements, any finally blocks associated with those try statements are executed until the exception is caught. If a finally block contains a break, continue, return, or throw statement, the pending control transfer initiated by the throw statement is forgotten. Instead, control is transferred to the target of the break, continue, return, or throw statement in the finally block.

References Exception Handling 9; Expression 4; The break Statement; The continue Statement; The return Statement; The try Statement; Throwable