In a Java 7 multicatch block what is the type of the caught exception?

java exception java-7
Andrew picture Andrew · Dec 5, 2011 · Viewed 7.3k times · Source

In a Java 7 multicatch block such as the following:

try {
    // code that throws exception
} catch (CharacterCodingException | UnknownServiceException ex) {
    // handle exception
}

what is the compile-time type of ex? Is it the most derived class that both exception types have in common? In this example that would be an IOException.

Answer

gustafc picture gustafc · Dec 5, 2011

Yes, the type of ex is the most specific supertype of both CharacterCodingException and UnknownServiceException, which would be IOException.

Edit: Straight from the horse's mouth on http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~darcy/ProjectCoin/ProjectCoin-Documentation-v0.83.html#multi_catch:

Informally, the lub (least upper bound) is the most specific supertype of the types in question.

Related questions

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: a (Unsupported major.minor version 51.0)

Possible Duplicate: unsupported major .minor version 51.0 I installed JDK7, a simple hello word program gets compile but when I run this I got following exception. Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: a (Unsupported major.minor version 51.0) at java.lang.…

Read More
Close resource quietly using try-with-resources

Is it possible to ignore the exception thrown when a resource is closed using a try-with-resources statement? Example: class MyResource implements AutoCloseable{ @Override public void close() throws Exception { throw new Exception("Could not close"); } public void read() throws Exception{ } } //this …

Read More
How do you assert that a certain exception is thrown in JUnit 4 tests?

How can I use JUnit4 idiomatically to test that some code throws an exception? While I can certainly do something like this: @Test public void testFooThrowsIndexOutOfBoundsException() { boolean thrown = false; try { foo.doStuff(); } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException e) { thrown = true; } assertTrue(thrown); } I …

Read More