An exception is an unwanted or unexpected event that disrupts the normal flow of a program’s instructions during execution.

public class ExceptionExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            int divisor = 0;
            int result = 10 / divisor; // This line will cause an ArithmeticException
            System.out.println("Result: " + result);
        } catch (ArithmeticException e) {
            System.out.println("An error occurred: Division by zero is not allowed.");
        }
        System.out.println("Program continues after handling the exception.");
    }
}

It is an object that represents an error or unexpected behavior that a program can handle or propagate to the calling environment.

Exceptions can be caught and handled by the program. When an exception occurs within a method, it creates an object. This object is called the exception object. It contains information about the exception, such as the name and description of the exception and the state of the program when the exception occurred.

Exceptions can be generated by the Java run-time system, or they can be manually generated by the code. Exceptions thrown by Java relate to fundamental errors that violate the rules of the Java language or the constraints of the Java execution environment. Manually generated exceptions are typically used to report some error condition to the caller of a method.