javac warnings for multi-catch

[David Holmes]

I have a query regarding the warnings that javac now issues that are 
related to the work on multi-catch that does more precise analysis of 
the exceptions that can be thrown. Here's an example:

../../../src/share/classes/java/util/concurrent/ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1115: 
warning: unreachable catch clause
                     } catch (Throwable x) {
                       ^
   thrown types RuntimeException,Error have already been caught

and here's the code:

                     try {
                         task.run();
                     } catch (RuntimeException x) {
                         thrown = x; throw x;
                     } catch (Error x) {
                         thrown = x; throw x;
                     } catch (Throwable x) {
                         thrown = x; throw new Error(x);
                     } finally {
                         afterExecute(task, thrown);
                     }

This pattern is not uncommon. The final catch of Throwable is there to 
close the gap that exists because of the API's (Class.newInstance) that 
allow you to throw checked-exceptions from methods that don't declare 
them. So the catch clause is not in fact unreachable.

It seems to me that these warnings will encourage people to remove the 
"offending" catch clause and actually end up with code that is not 
robust because of these historical flaws in the API's (not to mention 
native calls).

Perhaps it would be better to restrict the warnings to the cases where a 
previous clause will catch the exception expected by the later clause, 
rather than incorrectly assuming which exceptions can be thrown from the 
methods in the try-block.

David