What is an exception in Java?

Exception Handling

An exception is an event that disrupts the normal flow of a program's instructions during execution — like invalid input, a missing file, or dividing by zero. Java represents exceptions as objects (subclasses of Throwable) that can be thrown and caught to handle error conditions gracefully.

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#Exceptions#Basics

Why Exceptions Instead of Error Codes

Before exceptions, languages like C relied on functions returning error codes that callers had to manually check every time — easy to forget. Java's exception mechanism forces errors to propagate up the call stack automatically until something explicitly handles them, so a forgotten error can't silently vanish.

Normal flow interrupted → exception object thrown → propagates up until caught