University of Central Florida (UCF) COP3330 Object Oriented Programming Final Practice Exam

The 'throw' keyword in Java is used to explicitly throw an exception, making it clear how and when an exception occurs in your code. When you use 'throw', you are signaling that an exceptional condition has occurred, and you can provide the specific exception object you want to throw. This is a crucial part of error handling in Java, allowing you to manage the flow of your program by handling exceptions where they occur, rather than waiting for them to be caught later by a catch block.

Using 'throw' gives you fine control over the exception management process; you can throw built-in exceptions or your own custom exceptions if you've defined them. This capability is fundamental for robust application design, as it allows developers to signal error states intentionally and provide information about the nature of the problem encountered.

In contrast, just catching exceptions or creating them within a class are handled using different concepts in Java, which do not directly utilize the 'throw' keyword itself.