Exceptions in Java, Part 1: Exception handling basics

public static void main(String[] args)
{
   if (args.length != 2)
   {
      System.err.println("usage: java Copy srcfile dstfile");
      return;
   }

   try
   {
      copy(args[0], args[1]);
   }
   catch (IOException ioe)
   {
      System.err.println("I/O error: " + ioe.getMessage());
   }
}

static void copy(String srcFile, String dstFile) throws IOException
{
   FileInputStream fis = null;
   FileOutputStream fos = null;
   try
   {
      fis = new FileInputStream(srcFile);
      fos = new FileOutputStream(dstFile);
      int c;
      while ((c = fis.read()) != -1)
         fos.write(c);
   }
   finally
   {
      if (fis != null)
         try
         {
            fis.close();
         }
         catch (IOException ioe)
         {
            System.err.println(ioe.getMessage());
         }

      if (fos != null)
         try
         {
            fos.close();
         }
         catch (IOException ioe)
         {
            System.err.println(ioe.getMessage());
         }
   }
}

The file-copying logic has been moved into a copy() method. This method is designed to report an exception to the caller, but it first closes each open file.

This method's throws clause only lists IOException. It isn't necessary to include FileNotFoundException because FileNotFoundException subclasses IOException.

Once again, the finally clause presents a lot of code just to close two files. In the second part of this series, you will learn about the try-with-resources statement, which obviates the need to explicitly close these files.

In conclusion

In this article we've focused on the basics of Java's exception-oriented framework, but there is much more to grasp, including the aforementioned try-with-resources statement. The second half of this tutorial introduces Java's more advanced exception-oriented language features and library types.

This story, "Exceptions in Java, Part 1: Exception handling basics" was originally published by JavaWorld.