Refactor Exception Handling

Question

Ok i have sinned, i wrote too much code like this

try {
   // my code
} catch (Exception ex) {
   // doesn't matter
}

Now i'm going to cleanup/refactor this.

I'm using NB 6.7 and code completion works fine on first writing, adding all Exception types, etc. Once i have done the above code NB do not give more help.

Do you know a way to say NB look again for all Exception types and make the proposal for handling them and do code completion again ?

Answer 1

PMD identifies all these places where you have empty catch blocks (PMD does much more actually). It has NetBeans integration, so give it a try.

After identifying all the places with empty catch blocks you will have to consider each one by itself:

• sometimes just log the message
• sometimes restructure nearby code. I.e. if you are catching a NullPointerException, add a null check instead.
• sometimes you will have to consider rethrowing (and declaring checked) exceptions.

Answer 2

The problem is, that your catch-all handler "handles" all the exceptions, so there's not need for Netbeans to show any more hints.

If your exception handlers are already empty and you are planning to refactor them anyway, you can just temporarily remove them.

Tip: Auto-format your code, search for try and use bracket highlighting to find the matching catch blocks. Then remove all the handling code.

After that Netbeans will again propose various actions to handle the possible exceptions.

PS: Be careful, the default handling of Netbeans (i.e. just logging) is not always the best choice, either.