"Catching" a java.lang.NoSuchMethodError

Question

Hi all,
Currently developing a number of different versions of the same system at the same time and I have a problem with NoSuchMethodError.
Background:
The system consist of a number of jar files:
- a.jar
- b.jar
- c.jar
Each jar-file is version handled by itself, and it should be possible to upgrade only parts of the jar-files (e.g. only add bugfixes introduced in a.jar and b.jar) to a running system.
My problem is that I have developed a new version of the b.jar using a method introduced in v1.3 of the a.jar. Since other bugfixes also are introduced in the new version of b.jar, I need to be able to use the new b.jar release in both new systems (using v2.0 of a.jar) and old systems (using v1.0 of a.jar)
What I want to be able to do is something like below in a method defined in the b.jar:
try {
  temp.newMethod(...);  // <-- newMethod(...) @since a.jar v2.0
catch (java.lang.NoSuchMethodError nsme) {
  // Do nothing since the old version of a.jar
  // doesn't need the special handling introduced
  // in newMethod(...)
}I don't get it through the compiler this way though, any one of you guys who could help me out???
Thanks!
/Jonas

Answer 1

Thanks for your respond Juan, but it's not true that you can use try/catch only for Exceptions, works great with Errors as well...
Only a simple compile configuration error on my side that caused my problem, but I got great help from another direction that made me realize my mistake. Thank God for knowing the right people, once again cheers Heinz!!!
Anyway, there are 2 options to handle this problem:
1. Call the method using reflection
2. Compile the new code (b.jar) using the new a.jar. This way the compiler lets the code pass, and the NoSuchMethodError is easily caught by using a standard try/catch expression as the one included in my example above.
Needless to say I went with option number two since this was exactly what I wanted to do in the first place, but I failed in having the new version of a.jar in the classpath at compile time...
/Jonas (whos app is running like a dream at the moment)