This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Exception Propagation
Exceptions occur at different levels of abstraction. Catching and reporting a low-level exception can be confusing to someone who is not expecting it. When a web server shows me an error page with stack trace headed by a NullPointerException, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with the information. I’d rather see a message that said, “The programmer did not consider the scenario you have just presented.” I wouldn’t mind if the page also provided a pointer to further information that I could send to a programmer so he could diagnose the problem, but presenting me with untranslated details isn’t helpful.
Low-level exceptions often contain valuable information for diagnosing a defect. Wrap the low-level exception in the higher-level exception so that when the exception is printed, on a log for example, enough information is written to help find the defect.