What to return upon failure of a generic function

[Lowest0ne]

Hi all,

I'm making myself a simple stack container (it's an array with push/pop). I've got it working with int, but now am trying to bring it over to being generic. My code:

  public E pop()
  {
    if (position == 0) return 0;
    
    return stack[--position];
  }

I've faltered at line 3. What to return? Should I throw an exception? Doe Java already have an exception handle for this?

[pbrockway2]

There's IllegalStateException. And java.util.Stack throws an EmptyStackException.

Both extend RuntimeException for the implications of which see the Exceptions chapter of Oracle's Tutorial.