Item 65: Don’t ignore exceptions

1.  An empty catch block defeats the purpose of exceptions, which is to force you to handle exceptional conditions. At the very least, the catch block should contain a comment explaining why it is appropriate to ignore the exception.

 

2.  An example of the sort of situation where it might be appropriate to ignore an exception is when closing a FileInputStream. You haven’t changed the state of the file, so there’s no need to perform any recovery action.

 

3.  Properly handling an exception can avert failure entirely. Merely letting an exception propagate outward can at least cause the program to fail swiftly, preserving information to aid in debugging the failure.