15.6.3

Evaluation Respects Parentheses and Precedence

EXPRESSIONS

static int loseBig() throws Exception {

throw new Exception("Shuffle off to Buffalo!");

}

}

always prints:

java.lang.Exception: Shuffle off to Buffalo!

and not:

java.lang.ArithmeticException: / by zero

since no part of the division operation, including signaling of a divide by zero

exception, may appear to occur before the invocation of

loseBig

 completes, even

though the implementation may be able to detect or infer that the division opera 

tion would certainly result in a divide by zero exception.

15.6.3   Evaluation Respects Parentheses and Precedence

That is too weighty a subject to be discussed parenthetically . . .

 John Stuart Mill,

On Liberty

 (1869), Chapter IV

Java implementations must respect the order of evaluation as indicated explicitly

by parentheses and implicitly by operator precedence. An implementation may

not take advantage of algebraic identities such as the associative law to rewrite

expressions into a more convenient computational order unless it can be proven

that the replacement expression is equivalent in value and in its observable side

effects, even in the presence of multiple threads of execution (using the thread

execution model in  17), for all possible computational values that might be

involved.

In the case of floating point calculations, this rule applies also for infinity and

not a number (NaN) values. For example,

!(x