exception - unusual occurrences that happen within the logic of an application.
an exception is termed as an abnormal condition encountered by an application during execution.
"All errors and exceptions extend from Throwable. By catching Throwable, it is possible to handle all unexpected conditions.

There are several scenarios where it is good practice to catch Throwable. For example, in a server application, the threads that handle requests should catch Throwable and relay any errors or exceptions to the client. Another scenario is a long-running thread that performs some background activity. Such threads should catch Throwable, log any errors or exceptions, and then continue functioning.

It is rarely good practice for a method in a library to catch Throwable. In general, errors and exceptions should not be masked from the caller."
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Wh at_is_the_difference_between_c atch_exception_e_catch_error_e rr_and_catch_throwable_t

Answered by Nishu's , an ibibo Master, at 9:27 AM on October 14, 2008

Exceptions that are thrown by java runtime systems can be handled by Try and catch blocks. With throw exception we can handle the exceptions thrown by the program itself. If a method is capable of causing an exception that it does not

handle, it must specify this behavior so the callers of the method can guard

against that exception.


Exception and Error are the subclasses of the Throwable class. Exception class is used for exceptional conditions that user program should catch. With exception class we can subclass to create our own custom exception.

Error defines exceptions that are not excepted to be caught by you program. Example is Stack Overflow.

Answered by Nagendra , an ibibo Master, at 7:47 AM on October 14, 2008

Java Almanac has a good summary.

See http://javaalmanac.com/egs/Jav a%20Language/CatchThrowable.ht ml?l=new

All errors and exceptions extend from Throwable. By catching Throwable, it is possible to handle all unexpected conditions.

There are several scenarios where it is good practice to catch Throwable. For example, in a server application, the threads that handle requests should catch Throwable and relay any errors or exceptions to the client. Another scenario is a long-running thread that performs some background activity. Such threads should catch Throwable, log any errors or exceptions, and then continue functioning.

It is rarely good practice for a method in a library to catch Throwable. In general, errors and exceptions should not be masked from the caller.

Source site:
http://wiki.answers.com /Q/What_is_the_difference_betw een_catch_exception_e_catch_er ror_err_and_catch_throwable_t

Answered by Mohd Saqib , an ibibo Master, at 12:50 AM on October 14, 2008

Well, the two terms differ in a big way.

Exception Class ( catch exception)

Represents errors that occur during application execution.

This class is the base class for all exceptions. When an error occurs, either the system or the currently executing application reports it by throwing an exception containing information about the error. Once thrown, an exception is handled by the application or by the default exception handler.


On the other hand,

public class Throwable

The Throwable class is the superclass of all errors and exceptions in the Java language. Only objects that are instances of this class (or one of its subclasses) are thrown by the Java Virtual Machine or can be thrown by the Java throw statement. Similarly, only this class or one of its subclasses can be the argument type in a catch clause.

For more details , Please visit the source sites :

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2 /docs/api/java/lang/Throwable.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li brary/system.exception(VS.71).aspx

Answered by Alok Gupta , an ibibo Guru, at 10:32 PM on October 13, 2008

well;
"All errors and exceptions extend from Throwable. By catching Throwable, it is possible to handle all unexpected conditions.

There are several scenarios where it is good practice to catch Throwable. For example, in a server application, the threads that handle requests should catch Throwable and relay any errors or exceptions to the client. Another scenario is a long-running thread that performs some background activity. Such threads should catch Throwable, log any errors or exceptions, and then continue functioning.

It is rarely good practice for a method in a library to catch Throwable. In general, errors and exceptions should not be masked from the caller."

Answered by Kishore , an ibibo Master, at 10:08 PM on October 13, 2008