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Message:

context-dependent

Posted by Raghu Havaldar on May 05, 1999 at 11:04 AM

> Bill Venners wrote:

> > My own thought is that one should catch exceptions in the
> > method that knows how to handle that exception, and that is
> > usually going to be at the application level. Exceptions let
> > you transfer control from the part of a program where an
> > error or problem is detected to another part of the program
> > that knows how to handle the error.

> This is good as far as it goes but I wonder about how locally
> you should catch exceptions. Suppose you have a method that
> makes several calls to an API, and each call can throw a couple
> of different exceptions. Do you put a little try-catch block
> around each call, or a big one around the whole method? Any
> style guidelines? Thanks.

I think the approach here would be context-dependent.

Lets say you have method calls, m1, m2, m3 and m4 - with each
throwing 'checked' exceptions. If m1 and m2 need to be executed together to fulfill a part of the functionality of the method, then wrap both of them in one try/catch block. If they are independent - (one can proceed without the other)in terms of the context, then place them in a separate try/catch block.

Another approach: If either m1 or m2 resulted in an exception with which the method cannot continue, return from the method. This indicates how the try/catch blocks need to be placed. In many scenarios, the method can proceed after catching an exception, which influences the try/catch blocks.

any other suggestions...