Programmatically trigger the ClassNotFoundException

Question

I'd like to simulate the class not being found.
class MyClass{
   static{
      if(someCondition) ????;
   public MyClass(){}
}Is it possible to replace the '????' with something that causes the ClassNotFoundException in the following code:
try{
   Object o=Class.forName("MyClass").newInstance();
}Note: ClassNotFoundException is a CHECKED exception, so I cannot simply throw it!

Answer 1

What you can do is throw an ExceptionInInitializerError that wraps the CNFE. static {
    try {
        whatever
    catch (CNFE exc) {
        log it
        throw new ExceptionInInitializerError("couldn't load class " + classname, exc);
} Just remember that EIIError is an unchecked exception so if that static initializer is in, say, MyClass, you could have this situation: Foo foo = MyClass.staticMethodThatReturnsFoo(); // ExceptionInInitializerError thrown here if MyClass' static init fails and the compiler won't complain about declaring or catching the EIIError.