Error vs Exception

One of the most difficult parts of programming languages is to know the difference between Error and Exception. I used to get confused a lot about this. So, to help my mates to overcome this problem, I thought of writing a blog on it. After a long time experimenting, I have decided to write this blog in a table fashion(sounds odd, but easy to understand). Here you go.

An exception is an event that occurs during the execution of a program that disrupts the normal flow of instructions during the execution of a program.

Errors are the mistakes or faults in the program that causes the program to behave unexpectedly.

Exception: Most languages throw an exception at run-time except java. Java provides two types of exceptions. Let's see them.

Checked Exception: Checked exceptions are known to the compiler and must handle at compile time.

Unchecked Exception: These errors are not checked at runtime.

Compile Time Error/ Syntax Error: Common syntactical mistakes in the code.

Run Time Error: Run time errors that are caused by the environment in which the program is running.

Logical Error: Mistakes in the logical flow of the program.

Here comes the Point of Confusion :

Only confusion is between run-time errors and exceptions.

An exception is something that interrupts the normal flow of the program.

Something exceptional has happened within the program which should be handled to run the program uninterruptedly.

An exception that can be handled even in the compile-time in a language like java while that is not true in the case of run-time error.

Most of the run-time errors caused by the environment in which the application is running.

An error must be resolved. You simply cannot ignore them.

They are caused by the program itself.

Null reference exception is when the program tries to access the property of the null object.

You can recover from the exceptions by handling them through try-catch classes.

It is recommended to handle exceptions in the program.

Errors are mostly caused by the environment in which the application is running.

OutOfMemoryError occurs when JVM runs out of memory or StackOverFlow error occurs when stack overflows.

You cannot recover the program from the error. So, you must resolve the error.

NullPointerException

ArrayIndexOutOfBoundException

IOException

OutOfMemoryError

So, Exception is not a run-time error.

There is a clear difference between errors and exceptions in a language like java.

Different languages interpret error differently.

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