Catching Multiple Exceptions in Java 7

Jakob Jenkov
Last update: 2014-06-23

In Java 7 it was made possible to catch multiple different exceptions in the same catch block. This is also known as multi catch.

Before Java 7 you would write something like this:

try {

    // execute code that may throw 1 of the 3 exceptions below.

} catch(SQLException e) {
    logger.log(e);

} catch(IOException e) {
    logger.log(e);

} catch(Exception e) {
    logger.severe(e);
}

As you can see, the two exceptions SQLException and IOException are handled in the same way, but you still have to write two individual catch blocks for them.

In Java 7 you can catch multiple exceptions using the multi catch syntax:

try {

    // execute code that may throw 1 of the 3 exceptions below.

} catch(SQLException | IOException e) {
    logger.log(e);

} catch(Exception e) {
    logger.severe(e);
}

Notice how the two exception class names in the first catch block are separated by the pipe character |. The pipe character between exception class names is how you declare multiple exceptions to be caught by the same catch clause.

Jakob Jenkov

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