Why is UnknownHostException not caught in Exception (java)?

Question

My code looks like this :

try
{
   String htmlPageText=readFromHtml("http://www.yahoo.com");
}
catch (Exception e)
{
  System.out.println("===Here===");
}

Method readFromHtml() will take a URL and return an HTML page. Normally it works fine. But I'm trying to simulate a "site down" situation, so I unplugged the Internet connection. I thought, the error should be caught and the result will be "===Here===", but instead, it returned:

java.net.UnknownHostException: http://www.yahoo.com"

and never printed out "===Here===". UnknownHostException is an extension of java.lang.Exception , so why was it not caught in the catch clause? Do I need a catch (UnknownHostException ex) to get it?

Answer 1

What is the readFromHTML method source code ? My guess is that this method throws some kind of exception but not UnknownHostException... Somewhere else in your code the exception is left unhandled.