throws

Throws has multiple meanings across domains. In everyday language, it is the present tense of the verb to throw. In sports, throws refers to the group of events known as throwing events, including shot put, discus, hammer, and javelin. In competition, athletes aim to propel an implement as far as possible from a throwing circle or runway, and distances are measured from release to landing along a straight line. Records are kept for each event, and technique, strength, and wind conditions can influence results.

In computing, throws is a keyword associated chiefly with Java. It is used in a method declaration to indicate that the method may throw checked exceptions. For example, a signature such as public void read() throws IOException declares that an IOException might be propagated to the caller. The throw statement, by contrast, is the action that actually raises an exception. The distinction matters because checked exceptions must be either caught or declared by callers, whereas unchecked exceptions do not require handling. Some languages have different or deprecated mechanisms; for instance, C++ once supported exception specifications like throw(), but these have fallen out of use, and modern C++ relies on noexcept and standard exception types. Kotlin and Scala provide interoperability features that allow declaring exceptions for Java code, often via annotations such as @Throws.

See also: throwing (sports), exception handling, Java (programming language).