Java™ How to Program, Seventh Edition

13.8. Stack Unwinding

When an exception is thrown but not caught in a particular scope, the method-call stack is “unwound,” and an attempt is made to catch the exception in the next outer try block. This process is called stack unwinding. Unwinding the method-call stack means that the method in which the exception was not caught terminates, all local variables in that method are destroyed and control returns to the statement that originally invoked that method. If a try block encloses that statement, an attempt is made to catch the exception. If a try block does not enclose that statement, stack unwinding occurs again. If no catch block ever catches this exception and the exception is checked (as in the following example), compiling the program ...