What does it mean when the main method throws an exception?

Question

I\'m reviewing a midterm I did in preparation for my final exam tomorrow morning. I got this question wrong, but there\'s no correct answer pointed out, and I neglected to a

Answer 1

I agree with some other answers that the correct answer to the question is option 3. Option 4 says:

4. The main method should simply terminate if any exception occurs.

Note the "any" in this option. Here's an example of code in which an exception occurs, but main() does not terminate:

public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
    try {
        methodThatThrowsACheckedException();
    } catch (SomeCheckedException e) {
        // do something to handle this exception
    }
}

In this code an exception occurs, but the method does not terminate, as it's been setup to handle this exception. If the exception were an uncaught UncheckedException, then the method would terminate, of course. The point of option 4, though, is that any counter-example invalidates it, since it says "any" exception occurs.

Option 3, however, limits this termination to only occur when the exception in the method's signature is thrown:

3. The main method should simply terminate if the FileNotFoundException occurs.

The reason option 3 makes more sense is because code like the following does not make sense in practice:

public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
    try {
        methodThatThrowsFileNotFoundException();
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        // do something to handle this exception
    }
}

It doesn't make much sense to declare that a method throws an exception, but catch that exception in the method (unless, perhaps, you re-throw it after doing something, in which case option 3 still holds, as the method terminates eventually).