Which class is at the top of the Java exception hierarchy?

Which class is at the top of the Java exception hierarchy?

• A. Exception
• B. Throwable
• C. Error
• D. RuntimeException

Answer: (B)

In Java, the root of everything that can be thrown is the class Throwable. It sits at the top of the hierarchy, with two main branches coming from it: Exception and Error. Exceptions are conditions you can catch and handle (and RuntimeException is a common subclass of Exception), while Errors represent serious problems in the JVM that you normally don’t try to recover from. Since both of these branches originate from Throwable, it is the highest-level class in the exception hierarchy. That’s why the correct answer is Throwable. The other options lie below it: Exception and RuntimeException are subtypes of Throwable, and Error is another direct subtype of Throwable, but none sit above Throwable.

In Java, the root of everything that can be thrown is the class Throwable. It sits at the top of the hierarchy, with two main branches coming from it: Exception and Error. Exceptions are conditions you can catch and handle (and RuntimeException is a common subclass of Exception), while Errors represent serious problems in the JVM that you normally don’t try to recover from. Since both of these branches originate from Throwable, it is the highest-level class in the exception hierarchy. That’s why the correct answer is Throwable. The other options lie below it: Exception and RuntimeException are subtypes of Throwable, and Error is another direct subtype of Throwable, but none sit above Throwable.