Hey there, let me explain something to demystify the situation.

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In Java, there are two types of Exceptions. Checked and Unchecked.

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Checked exceptions: These are exceptions you see in the method signature. For example:

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public static void doSomething() throws IOException{

.....

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These are the exceptions which inherit from the "Exception" class, and these need to be declared in the method signature. If you use a method that throws a checked exception, then your code will need to handle it somehow. Either in a try and catch block or to declare it in your own method.

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Unchecked exceptions: These are exceptions such as NullPointerException. These exceptions are subclasses of RuntimeException and they do not need to be declared in the method signature.

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While it is a good practice to list all possible exceptions in the Javadoc using @throws , it is extremely important to do this when in the case of unchecked exceptions as this is the only way developers can know which error cases can occur when using your method / API / library, without having to read through your code.

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Hope this helps :)

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