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@SneakyThrows

To boldly throw checked exceptions where no one has thrown them before!

Overview

- @SneakyThrows can be used to sneakily throw checked exceptions without actually declaring this in your method's throws - clause. This somewhat contentious ability should be used carefully, of course. The code generated by lombok will not ignore, wrap, replace, - or otherwise modify the thrown checked exception; it simply fakes out the compiler. On the JVM (class file) level, all exceptions, checked or not, - can be thrown regardless of the throws clause of your methods, which is why this works. -

- Common use cases for when you want to opt out of the checked exception mechanism center around 2 situations:

A needlessly strict interface, such as Runnable - whatever exception propagates out of your run() method, - checked or not, it will be passed to the Thread's unhandled exception handler. Catching a checked exception and wrapping it - in some sort of RuntimeException is only obscuring the real cause of the issue.
An 'impossible' exception. For example, new String(someByteArray, "UTF-8"); declares that it can throw an - UnsupportedEncodingException but according to the JVM specification, UTF-8 must always be available. An - UnsupportedEncodingException here is about as likely as a ClassNotFoundError when you use a String object, - and you don't catch those either!

- Be aware that it is impossible to catch sneakily thrown checked types directly, as javac will not let you write a catch block - for an exception type that no method call in the try body declares as thrown. This problem is not relevant in either of the use cases listed - above, so let this serve as a warning that you should not use the @SneakyThrows mechanism without some deliberation! -

- You can pass any number of exceptions to the @SneakyThrows annotation. If you pass no exceptions, you may throw any - exception sneakily. -

- NOTE: with lombok versions older than 0.10, unlike other lombok transformations, you need to put lombok.jar on your - classpath when you run your program. -

With Lombok

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Vanilla Java

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Supported configuration keys:

lombok.sneakyThrows.flagUsage = [warning | error] (default: not set): Lombok will flag any usage of @SneakyThrows as a warning or error if configured.

Small print

- Because @SneakyThrows is an implementation detail and not part of your method signature, it is an error if you try to - declare a checked exception as sneakily thrown when you don't call any methods that throw this exception. (Doing so is perfectly legal - for throws statements to accommodate subclasses). Similarly, @SneakyThrows does not inherit. -

- For the nay-sayers in the crowd: Out of the box, Eclipse will offer a 'quick-fix' for uncaught exceptions that wraps the offending - statement in a try/catch block with just e.printStackTrace() in the catch block. This is so spectacularly non-productive - compared to just sneakily throwing the exception onwards, that Roel and Reinier feel more than justified in claiming that the - checked exception system is far from perfect, and thus an opt-out mechanism is warranted. -

- If you put @SneakyThrows on a constructor, any call to a sibling or super constructor is excluded from the @SneakyThrows treatment. This is a - java restriction we cannot work around: Calls to sibling/super constructors MUST be the first statement in the constructor; they cannot be placed inside try/catch blocks. -

- @SneakyThrows on an empty method, or a constructor that is empty or only has a call to a sibling / super constructor results in no try/catch block and a warning. -

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