Pragmatic Exceptions

Dr. Dobb's Journal March, 2006

Tip #7: Controlled Failures Need Exceptions

Sometimes exceptions need to be used as a way to control program flow. This is true when writing unit tests, too. Here, the execution of the code to test is expected to produce a failure. It would be problematic if a failure does not occur. By asserting "not null" on the exception in the finally clause (as in the following example), the unit test passes:

   
public void testExceptionIsThrown {
  Exception exception;
    try{
    // something that generates an exception
    ...
  } catch( Exception x ) {
      exception = x;
  } finally {
      assertNotNull(ÒException was thrownÓ, exception);
 }
}

—Benjamin Booth
http://www.benjaminbooth.com/