Retrieving access token from SharedPreference

Question

Here is code that retrieves an access token from SharedPreference.

  public static AuthToken getFromPreference(SharedPreferences p) {
    try {
      String at = p.getString(ACCESS_TOKEN_KEY, "");
      String uid = p.getString(USER_ID_KEY, "");
      long t = p.getLong(EXPIRES_AT_KEY, -1);

      if (at.isEmpty() || uid.isEmpty() || t == -1)
        return null;

      return new AuthToken(at, uid, t);
    } catch (ClassCastException e) {
      Log.wtf(TAG, "Incorrect field type in shared preference.");
      return null;
    }
  }

Can I omit exception handling if I don't expect it to happen in normal workcycle? Or should I handle even this terrible situation to not let app crash?

Answer 1

ClassCastException is not a checked exception, and so it's not a normal practice to catch it. You can omit catching this exception. However, you should make sure your application will never store values in shared preferences that would raise such errors.