What is difference between Errors and Exceptions?

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Differences betweeen Exception and Error

How can I differentiate between Errors and Exceptions in Java?

Answer 1

An Error "indicates serious problems that a reasonable application should not try to catch."

while

An Exception "indicates conditions that a reasonable application might want to catch."

Error along with RuntimeException & their subclasses are unchecked exceptions. All other Exception classes are checked exceptions.

Checked exceptions are generally those from which a program can recover & it might be a good idea to recover from such exceptions programmatically. Examples include FileNotFoundException, ParseException, etc. A programmer is expected to check for these exceptions by using the try-catch block or throw it back to the caller

On the other hand we have unchecked exceptions. These are those exceptions that might not happen if everything is in order, but they do occur. Examples include ArrayIndexOutOfBoundException, ClassCastException, etc. Many applications will use try-catch or throws clause for RuntimeExceptions & their subclasses but from the language perspective it is not required to do so. Do note that recovery from a RuntimeException is generally possible but the guys who designed the class/exception deemed it unnecessary for the end programmer to check for such exceptions.

Errors are also unchecked exception & the programmer is not required to do anything with these. In fact it is a bad idea to use a try-catch clause for Errors. Most often, recovery from an Error is not possible & the program should be allowed to terminate. Examples include OutOfMemoryError, StackOverflowError, etc.

Do note that although Errors are unchecked exceptions, we shouldn't try to deal with them, but it is ok to deal with RuntimeExceptions(also unchecked exceptions) in code. Checked exceptions should be handled by the code.

Answer 2

Error and Exception both extend Throwable, but mostly Error is thrown by JVM in a scenario which is fatal and there is no way for the application program to recover from that error. For instance OutOfMemoryError.

Though even application can raise an Error but its just not a good a practice, instead applications should use checked exceptions for recoverable conditions and runtime exceptions for programming errors.

Answer 3

In general error is which nobody can control or guess when it occurs.Exception can be guessed and can be handled. In Java Exception and Error are sub class of Throwable.It is differentiated based on the program control.Error such as OutOfMemory Error which no programmer can guess and can handle it.It depends on dynamically based on architectire,OS and server configuration.Where as Exception programmer can handle it and can avoid application's misbehavior.For example if your code is looking for a file which is not available then IOException is thrown.Such instances programmer can guess and can handle it.

Answer 4

Error is something that most of the time you cannot handle it.

Exception was meant to give you an opportunity to do something with it. like try something else or write to the log.

try{
  //connect to database 1
}
catch(DatabaseConnctionException err){
  //connect to database 2
  //write the err to log
}