The Java Language Specification, Third Edition

EXPRESSIONS Normal and Abrupt Completion of Evaluation 15.6
• In an assignment to an array component of reference type, when the actual
class of the object referenced by the value to be assigned is not compatible
with the actual run-time component type of the array (§10.10, §15.13,
§15.26.1); in this case an ArrayStoreException is thrown.
• When an exception is not caught by any catch handler (§11.3); in this case
the thread of control that encountered the exception first invokes the method
uncaughtException for its thread group and then terminates.
15.6 Normal and Abrupt Completion of Evaluation
No more: the end is sudden and abrupt.
pology for the Foregoing Poems
Every expression has a normal mode of evaluation in which certain computational
steps are carried out. The following sections describe the normal mode of evaluation
for each kind of expression. If all the steps are carried out without an exception
being thrown, the expression is said to complete normally.
If, however, evaluation of an expression throws an exception, then the expression
is said to complete abruptly. An abrupt completion always has an associated
reason, which is always a throw with a given value.
Run-time exceptions are thrown by the predefined operators as follows:
• A class instance creation expression (§15.9), array creation expression
(§15.10), or string concatenation operator expression (§15.18.1) throws an
OutOfMemoryError if there is insufficient memory available.
• An array creation expression throws a NegativeArraySizeException if the
value of any dimension expression is less than zero (§15.10).
• A field access (§15.11) throws a NullPointerException if the value of the
object reference expression is null.
• A method invocation expression (§15.12) that invokes an instance method
throws a NullPointerException if the target reference is null.
• An array access (§15.13) throws a NullPointerException if the value of
the array reference expression is null.
• An array access (§15.13) throws an ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException if
the value of the array index expression is negative or greater than or equal to
the length of the array.
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