Too early class loading

Question

Hello,
From the vm spec, it is not clear when should the Exception class should be loaded.
After compiling the following, I just removed XException.class.
In case there is no exception thrown by f(), no java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError should thrown. But java 1.4.2_04 does throw:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: XException
-------------------x cut here x--------------------------------------------
class XException extends java.io.IOException {}
public class A {
static void f () throws XException{
if ((int)Math.random() == 1) {
System.out.println ("I'm throwing!");
throw new XException(); }}
public static void main (String args[]) {
try { f (); } catch (XException e) {}}
-------------------x cut here x--------------------------------------------

Answer 1

Why is it that verification process of method requires
the exception class mentioned in the exceptions
classes should be loaded? I couldn't find any
reference related to exception tables in the
verification procedures.
I know that current implementation of SUN does load
the exception class. But the question is:
Is it strictly required behavior for the conformance
to the JVM spec?
The specification is sometimes to obscure in the sense
that the class loading time is not explicitly
specified except the class should be initialized
before its first active use and loading and resolving
should be happened before the initialization.Like I said I was not able to find any thing in the spec that said that it should happen that way.
On the other hand I couldn't find anything that said it shouldn't either.
Nor did I find anything in the Java Spec Report either for or against.