Re: Understanding Exceptions

From:
Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.help
Date:
Sun, 07 Nov 2010 08:05:16 -0800
Message-ID:
<wOydnWYNkpLcU0vRnZ2dnUVZ_g6dnZ2d@earthlink.com>
Stanimir Stamenkov wrote:

Sun, 7 Nov 2010 13:27:08 +0000 (UTC), /Steve Crook/:

private static String sha256(byte[] password, byte[] iv) {
     try {
         MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
         md.update(iv);
         byte[] hash = md.digest(password);
         return byteArrayToHexString(hash);
     } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException nsae) {
     }
     return "foobar";
}

This seems downright ugly though and is probably also evil. As the
exception never happens though, because there is such an algorithm as
"SHA-256", perhaps it is correct. Argh, brain ache! :)


I think the documentation of MessageDigest.getInstance(String) is clear
enough
<http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/security/MessageDigest.html#getInstance%28java.lang.String%29>:

Throws:
    NoSuchAlgorithmException - if no Provider supports a
MessageDigestSpi implementation for the specified algorithm.


So in theory the code could run in an environment where no "SHA-256"
provider is supplied. If your application accepts this for granted, and
the lack of "SHA-256" provider should be considered a serious
configuration omission, you could at least throw an AssertionError you
don't need to explicitly handle in intermediate calls (but may be at
some top-level, or just leave the JVM/current thread terminate):

private static String sha256(byte[] password, byte[] iv) {
    try {
        MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
        md.update(iv);
        byte[] hash = md.digest(password);
        return byteArrayToHexString(hash);
    } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException nsae) {
        throw new AssertionError(nsae);
    }
}

You should not "swallow" the original exception as causing the program
to continue as if there was no error and returning a bogus result would
cause more severe errors for your application.


I agree with most of this, but would prefer an Exception extending
RuntimeException to AssertionError. Shouldn't AssertionError mean that
an assertion has failed, not some other unexpected condition? I would be
surprised to see it in a run with assertion checking disabled. An Error,
rather than an Exception, seems a bit drastic for something that may be
recoverable by skipping a single file or using a different algorithm.

Patricia

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