When to choose checked and unchecked exceptions
Checked Exceptions are great, so long as you understand when they should be used. The Java core API fails to follow these rules for SQLException (and sometimes for IOException) which is why they are so terrible.
Checked Exceptions should be used for predictable, but unpreventable errors that are reasonable to recover from.
Unchecked Exceptions should be used for everything else.
I'll break this down for you, because most people misunderstand what this means.
- Predictable but unpreventable: The caller did everything within their power to validate the input parameters, but some condition outside their control has caused the operation to fail. For example, you try reading a file but someone deletes it between the time you check if it exists and the time the read operation begins. By declaring a checked exception, you are telling the caller to anticipate this failure.
- Reasonable to recover from: There is no point telling callers to anticipate exceptions that they cannot recover from. If a user attempts to read from an non-existing file, the caller can prompt them for a new filename. On the other hand, if the method fails due to a programming bug (invalid method arguments or buggy method implementation) there is nothing the application can do to fix the problem in mid-execution. The best it can do is log the problem and wait for the developer to fix it at a later time.
Unless the exception you are throwing meets all of the above conditions it should use an Unchecked Exception.
Reevaluate at every level: Sometimes the method catching the checked exception isn't the right place to handle the error. In that case, consider what is reasonable for your own callers. If the exception is predictable, unpreventable and reasonable for them to recover from then you should throw a checked exception yourself. If not, you should wrap the exception in an unchecked exception. If you follow this rule you will find yourself converting checked exceptions to unchecked exceptions and vice versa depending on what layer you are in.
For both checked and unchecked exceptions, use the right abstraction level. For example, a code repository with two different implementations (database and filesystem) should avoid exposing implementation-specific details by throwing SQLException or IOException. Instead, it should wrap the exception in an abstraction that spans all implementations (e.g. RepositoryException).
From A Java Learner:
When an exception occurs, you have to either catch and handle the exception, or tell compiler that you can't handle it by declaring that your method throws that exception, then the code that uses your method will have to handle that exception (even it also may choose to declare that it throws the exception if it can't handle it).
Compiler will check that we have done one of the two things (catch, or declare). So these are called Checked exceptions. But Errors, and Runtime Exceptions are not checked for by compiler (even though you can choose to catch, or declare, it is not required). So, these two are called Unchecked exceptions.
Errors are used to represent those conditions which occur outside the application, such as crash of the system. Runtime exceptions are usually occur by fault in the application logic. You can't do anything in these situations. When runtime exception occur, you have to re-write your program code. So, these are not checked by compiler. These runtime exceptions will uncover in development, and testing period. Then we have to refactor our code to remove these errors.
The rule I use is: never use unchecked exceptions! (or when you don't see any way around it)
There's a very strong case for the opposite: Never use checked exceptions. I'm reluctant to take sides in the debate but there seems to be a broad consensus that introducing checked exceptions was a wrong decision in hindsight. Please don't shoot the messenger and refer to those arguments.