Unable to catch IOException

Question

An IOException is thrown and, for some reason, it's impossible to catch. Have a look at the code below. The stack trace says an IOException is thrown when calling the "apply"-method. The exception doesn't, however, get caught by the catch clause. When I try to catch an IOException instead, Eclipse complains saying: "Unreachable catch block for IOException. This exception is never thrown from the try statement body"

Why is this happening?

Code:

try {
    action.apply();
}
catch (Exception e) {
    System.out.println("Fail");
}

Here's the stacktrace:

java.io.IOException: Unable to download JavaScript from 'somesite' (status 404).
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HtmlPage.loadJavaScriptFromUrl(HtmlPage.java:1023)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HtmlPage.loadExternalJavaScriptFile(HtmlPage.java:967)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HtmlScript.executeScriptIfNeeded(HtmlScript.java:353)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HtmlScript$1.execute(HtmlScript.java:225)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HtmlScript.onAllChildrenAddedToPage(HtmlScript.java:235)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HTMLParser$HtmlUnitDOMBuilder.endElement(HTMLParser.java:718)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.endElement(Unknown Source)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HTMLParser$HtmlUnitDOMBuilder.endElement(HTMLParser.java:676)
at org.cyberneko.html.HTMLTagBalancer.callEndElement(HTMLTagBalancer.java:1136)
at org.cyberneko.html.HTMLTagBalancer.endElement(HTMLTagBalancer.java:1038)
at org.cyberneko.html.filters.DefaultFilter.endElement(DefaultFilter.java:206)
at org.cyberneko.html.filters.NamespaceBinder.endElement(NamespaceBinder.java:329)
at org.cyberneko.html.HTMLScanner$ContentScanner.scanEndElement(HTMLScanner.java:2999)
at org.cyberneko.html.HTMLScanner$ContentScanner.scan(HTMLScanner.java:1991)
at org.cyberneko.html.HTMLScanner.scanDocument(HTMLScanner.java:895)
at org.cyberneko.html.HTMLConfiguration.parse(HTMLConfiguration.java:499)
at org.cyberneko.html.HTMLConfiguration.parse(HTMLConfiguration.java:452)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HTMLParser$HtmlUnitDOMBuilder.parse(HTMLParser.java:896)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HTMLParser.parse(HTMLParser.java:350)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.html.HTMLParser.parseHtml(HTMLParser.java:304)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.DefaultPageCreator.createHtmlPage(DefaultPageCreator.java:134)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.DefaultPageCreator.createPage(DefaultPageCreator.java:101)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.loadWebResponseInto(WebClient.java:420)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.getPage(WebClient.java:303)
at com.gargoylesoftware.htmlunit.WebClient.getPage(WebClient.java:360)
at org.openqa.selenium.htmlunit.HtmlUnitDriver.get(HtmlUnitDriver.java:228)
at org.openqa.selenium.htmlunit.HtmlUnitDriver.get(HtmlUnitDriver.java:216)
at org.openqa.selenium.internal.seleniumemulation.Open.handleSeleneseCommand(Open.java:36)
at org.openqa.selenium.internal.seleniumemulation.Open.handleSeleneseCommand(Open.java:22)
at org.openqa.selenium.internal.seleniumemulation.SeleneseCommand.apply(SeleneseCommand.java:33)
at Action.runSeleniumAction(Action.java:235)
at SessionDriver.runSession(SessionDriver.java:192)
at SessionDriver.run(SessionDriver.java:123)

Answer 1

Right, the apply() method itself isn't throwing that exception. Something else inside that apply method() is, and that something prints the complete stack trace instead of the "fail" message that you've decided is somehow better.

Answer 2

As you can see in the stacktrace, your code is missing, therefore you can't catch the exception. My guess is that SessionDriver.run() is called from a different thread.

Have you tried Selenium-RC? It should be able to catch these errors and pass them on to the test case.

Answer 3

You're using eclipse - so easiest way to get to the source of the exception is to run your application in debug mode and set a breakpoint on java.io.IOException. So whenever this exception is thrown somewhere in the running VM, eclipse will stop the application and show you thread, class and line of code (if available).

Answer 4

the apply() method fully handles the exception and does not rethrow it. If it did it would be marked as "public void apply() throws IOException".

The compiler warns you about this, since it would result in inaccurate error handling if it didn't.