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Is there ever a reason to not use the final keyword when catching an exception?

Asked 2012-08-21T09:19:47.323
22

I've seen some code as below in some example BlackBerry Java classes:

try
{
    // stuff that will throw an exception
}
catch(final Exception e)
{
    // deal with it
}

I presume the final is for performance. As per the title, since there's rarely (ever?) any reason to modify an Exception that's already been thrown, should they always be final?

If so, isn't this something that could be done by the compiler? Or is it done by the compiler and adding the final manually has no impact at all?

java performance exception final
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I believe final is useful when the code which could use it is too long to easily read and understand. e.g. I would make fields final where possible to ensure they are assigned correctly in constructors and not modified anywhere in the class.

Using final for a catch clause is unlikely to help much as a) the value is guaranteed to be set b) the code using it should be short, c) its very rare to modify it anyway.

There is nothing stopping you from doing it however.

answered 2012-08-21T09:28:08.583

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