Exception Handling

Sometimes when running code things happen that were not expected, i.e. when an object is expected to exist but doesn’t, or when a response is expected within a certain amount of time, but isn’t. The art to prevent Applications from crashing in these cases, is called Exception Handling.

In some scenarios Exception Handling is especially important, for example in C and C++ where one must release memory and resources to prevent leaks.

Some programming languages like C# and Java make this easier because they implement a Garbage Collector to automatically release memory for example. Though this generally works well for memory (but not always!), it is not always enough for resources. I.e., for a Database Connection it may not be sufficient to just release allocated memory, but you may also need to call the Database.Close() method, for example. There sometimes are also solutions for this. .NET has an interface called IDisposable, for example.

Exception Handling should not be confused with Error Detection; Error Detection has a broader scope than a Programming Language, Application, or a System.