What are the circumstances under which a finally {} block will NOT execute?

Question

In a Java try{} ... catch{} ... finally{} block, code within the finally{} is generally considered \"guaranteed\" to run regardless of what occurs

Answer 1

If you call System.exit() the program exits immediately without finally being called.

A JVM Crash e.g. Segmentation Fault, will also prevent finally being called. i.e. the JVM stops immediately at this point and produces a crash report.

An infinite loop would also prevent a finally being called.

The finally block is always called when a Throwable is thrown. Even if you call Thread.stop() which triggers a ThreadDeath to be thrown in the target thread. This can be caught (it's an Error) and the finally block will be called.

---

public static void main(String[] args) {
    testOutOfMemoryError();
    testThreadInterrupted();
    testThreadStop();
    testStackOverflow();
}

private static void testThreadStop() {
    try {
        try {
            final Thread thread = Thread.currentThread();
            new Thread(new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    thread.stop();
                }
            }).start();
            while(true)
                Thread.sleep(1000);
        } finally {
            System.out.print("finally called after ");
        }
    } catch (Throwable t) {
        System.out.println(t);
    }
}

private static void testThreadInterrupted() {
    try {
        try {
            final Thread thread = Thread.currentThread();
            new Thread(new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    thread.interrupt();
                }
            }).start();
            while(true)
                Thread.sleep(1000);
        } finally {
            System.out.print("finally called after ");
        }
    } catch (Throwable t) {
        System.out.println(t);
    }
}

private static void testOutOfMemoryError() {
    try {
        try {
            List bytes = new ArrayList();
            while(true)
                bytes.add(new byte[8*1024*1024]);
        } finally {
            System.out.print("finally called after ");
        }
    } catch (Throwable t) {
        System.out.println(t);
    }
}

private static void testStackOverflow() {
    try {
        try {
            testStackOverflow0();
        } finally {
            System.out.print("finally called after ");
        }
    } catch (Throwable t) {
        System.out.println(t);
    }
}

private static void testStackOverflow0() {
    testStackOverflow0();
}

prints

finally called after java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
finally called after java.lang.InterruptedException: sleep interrupted
finally called after java.lang.ThreadDeath
finally called after java.lang.StackOverflowError

Note: in each case the thread kept running, even after SO, OOME, Interrupted and Thread.stop()!