New IOException Constructors in JDK 6

In JDK 1.5 or earlier, IOException only has 2 constructors: IOException() and IOException(String s). So you can't pass a cause exception or throwable to these constructors. To do that, you will need to do something like this:

ZipException ze = new ZipException("Nested ZipException");
IOException e = new IOException("IOException with nested ZipException");
e.initCause(ze);
throw e;

In JDK 6, 2 additional constructors are added:

IOException(String s, Throwable cause)
IOException(Throwable cause)

So the following can compile and run fine in JDK 6 and later:

ZipException ze = new ZipException("Nested ZipException");
IOException e = new IOException(ze);
throw e;

but will fail to compile in JDK 1.5 or earlier:

/cygdrive/c/tmp > javac -version A.java
javac 1.5.0_06
A.java:15: cannot find symbol
symbol  : constructor IOException(java.util.zip.ZipException)
location: class java.io.IOException
              IOException e = new IOException(ze);
                              ^
1 error

See IOException javadoc in JDK 1.5 and JDK 6.

Tags: java, java exception, JDK, JDK 6, IOException