Throwing exceptions to control flow - code smell? [closed]

Question

Consider this code (Java, specifically):

public int doSomething()
{
    doA();

    try {
        doB();
    } catch (MyException e) {
        return ERROR;
    }

    doC();
    return SUCCESS;
}

Where doB() is defined as:

private void doB() throws MyException

Basically, MyException exists only in case doB() meets some condition (which is not catastrophic, but does need to somehow raise this condition) so that doSomething() will know to exit with an error.

Do you find the use of an exception, in this case to control flow, acceptable? Or is this a code smell? If so, how would you refactor this?

Answer 1

Is it really important for doC() to be executed when doB() fails? If not, why not simply let the Exception propagate up the stack to where it can be handled effectively. Personally, I consider using error codes a code smell.

Edit: In your comment, you have described exactly the scenarion where you should simply declare

public void doSomething() throws MyException