> some nested implementation detail API several layers done can take arbitrary streams, and the String based implementation is done by creating a stream for tha

> some nested implementation detail API several layers done can take arbitrary streams, and the String based implementation is done by creating a stream for that string, but the stream api allows for IOExceptions in the case of streams from disk or network devices etc. > What reasonable recovery option is there then? adrianmsmith's answer seems to have it, here are some rather less useful thoughts, for good measure: The C++-style approach might be to have a boolean template parameter in the Stream API, allowCheckedExceptions, to change the signatures accordingly. As Java lacks specialisation, I don't imagine there's a way to do anything similar, short of having the library offer two very similar Steam APIs, one that permits throwing of checked exceptions and one that doesn't. edit I suppose the standard library could offer a wrapper around the Stream API, to only accept non-throwing streams, and to return a NonThrowingStream. Internally this wrapper would presumably use the strategy adrianmsmith explained.