CORBA has two types of exceptions: standard system exceptions which are fully specified by the OMG and user exceptions which are defined by the individual application programmer. CORBA exceptions are a little different from Java exception objects, but those differences are largely handled in the mapping from IDL to Java.
Topics in this section include:
To specify an exception in IDL, the interface designer
uses the raises keyword.
This is similar to the throws specification in Java.
When you use the exception
keyword in IDL you create a user-defined exception. The standard
system exceptions need not (and cannot) be specified this way.
System Exceptions
CORBA defines a set of standard system exceptions, which
are generally raised by the ORB libraries to signal systemic
error conditions like:
All IDL operations can throw system exceptions when invoked. The interface designer need not specify anything to enable operations in the interface to throw system exceptions -- the capability is automatic.
This makes sense because no matter how trivial an operation's implementation is, the potential of an operation invocation coming from a client that is in another process, and perhaps (likely) on another machine, means that a whole range of errors is possible.
Therefore, a CORBA client should always catch CORBA system
exceptions. Moreover, developers cannot rely on the Java compiler to
notify them of a system exception they should catch, because CORBA
system exceptions are descendants of java.lang.RuntimeException.
System Exception Structure
All CORBA system exceptions have the same structure:
exception <SystemExceptionName> { // descriptive of error unsigned long minor; // more detail about error CompletionStatus completed; // yes, no, maybe }
System exceptions are subtypes of java.lang.RuntimeException through org.omg.CORBA.SystemException:
java.lang.Exception | +--java.lang.RuntimeException | +--org.omg.CORBA.SystemException | +--BAD_PARAM | +--//etc.
All CORBA system exceptions have a minor code field, a number that
provides additional information about the nature of the failure that caused
the exception. Minor code meanings are not specified by the OMG;
each ORB vendor
specifies appropriate minor codes for that implementation.
For the meaning of minor codes thrown by the Java ORB, see
Minor code meanings .
Completion Status
All CORBA system exceptions have a completion status field, indicating the status of the operation that threw the exception. The completion codes are:
CORBA user exceptions are subtypes of java.lang.Exception through org.omg.CORBA.UserException:
java.lang.Exception | +--org.omg.CORBA.UserException | +-- Stocks.BadSymbol | +--//etc.
Each user-defined exception
specified in IDL results in a generated Java exception class. These
exceptions are entirely defined and implemented by the programmer
Minor Code Meanings
System exceptions all have a field minor that allows CORBA vendors to provide additional information about the cause of the exception. For a list of standard OMG minor code exceptions (OMGVMCID), refer to the OMG document at http://cgi.omg.org/docs/omg/02-06-01.txt. If you encounter a Sun minor code exception, email us for more information at javaidl@eng.sun.com. When requesting the meaning of a minor code please include the following information:
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