Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition [Electronic resources]

This is the root class of the Java exception and error hierarchy. All exceptions and errors are subclasses of Throwable. The getMessage( ) method retrieves any error message associated with the exception or error. The default implemenation of getLocalizedMessage( ) simply calls getMessage( ), but subclasses may override this method to return an error message that has been localized for the default locale.

It is often the case that an Exception or Error is generated as a direct result of some other exception or error, perhaps one thrown by a lower-level API. As of Java 1.4 and later, all Throwable objects may have a "cause" which specifies the Throwable that caused this one. If there is a cause, pass it to the THRowable( ) constructor, or to the initCause( ) method. When you catch a Throwable object, you can obtain the Throwable that caused it, if any, with getCause( ).

Every THRowable object has information about the execution stack associated with it. This information is initialized when the THRowable object is created. If the object will be thrown somewhere other than where it was created, or if it caught and will be re-thrown, you can use fillInStackTrace( ) to capture the current execution stack before throwing it. printStackTrace( ) prints a textual representation of the stack to the specified PrintWriter, PrintStream, or to the System.err stream. In Java 1.4, you can also obtain this information with getStackTrace( ) which returns an array of StackTraceElement objects describing the execution stack.

public class

Throwable implements Serializable { // Public Constructors public

Throwable ( ); public

Throwable (String

message );

1.4 public

Throwable (Throwable

cause );

1.4 public

Throwable (String

message , Throwable

cause ); // Public Instance Methods public Throwable

fillInStackTrace ( ); native synchronized

1.4 public Throwable

getCause ( ); default:null

1.1 public String

getLocalizedMessage ( ); default:null public String

getMessage ( ); default:null

1.4 public StackTraceElement[ ]

getStackTrace ( );

1.4 public Throwable

initCause (Throwable

cause ); synchronized public void

printStackTrace ( ); public void

printStackTrace (java.io.PrintStream

s );

1.1 public void

printStackTrace (java.io.PrintWriter

s );

1.4 public void

setStackTrace (StackTraceElement[ ]

stackTrace ); // Public Methods Overriding Object public String

toString ( ); }

Subclasses

Error, Exception

Passed To

Too many methods to list.

Returned By

java.io.WriteAbortedException.getCause( ), ClassNotFoundException.{getCause( ), getException( )}, ExceptionInInitializerError.{getCause( ), getException( )}, java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException.{getCause( ), getTargetException( )}, java.lang.reflect.UndeclaredThrowableException.{getCause( ), getUndeclaredThrowable( )}, java.security.PrivilegedActionException.getCause( ), java.util.logging.LogRecord.getThrown( ), javax.xml.transform.TransformerException.{getCause( ), getException( ), initCause( )}, javax.xml.xpath.XPathException.getCause( )

Thrown By

Object.finalize( ), java.lang.reflect.InvocationHandler.invoke( )