AspectJ : can I neutralize 'throw' (replace it with log) and continue the method - aop

Question

In below code I want to neutralize the throw and continue the method - Can it be done ?
public class TestChild extends TestParent{
private String s;
public void doit(String arg) throws Exception {
if(arg == null) {
Exception e = new Exception("exception");
throw e;
}
s=arg;
}
}
The net result should be that, in case of the exception triggered (arg == null)
throw e is replaced by Log(e)
s=arg is executed
Thanks
PS : I can 'swallow' the exception or replace it with another exception but in all cases the method does not continue, all my interventions take place when the harm is done (ie the exception has been thrown)

Answer 1

I strongly doubt that general solution exists. But for your particular code and requirements 1 and 2:
privileged public aspect SkipNullBlockAspect {
public pointcut needSkip(TestChild t1, String a1): execution(void TestChild.doit(String))
&& this(t1) && args(a1) ;
void around(TestChild t1, String a1): needSkip(t1, a1){
if(a1==null) //if argument is null - doing hack.
{
a1=""; //alter argument to skip if block.
proceed(t1, a1);
t1.s=null;
a1=null; //restore argument
System.out.println("Little hack.");
}
else
proceed(t1, a1);
}
}

Answer 2

I think that generally what you want makes no sense most cases because if an application throws an exception it has a reason to do so, and that reason almost always includes the intention not to continue with the normal control flow of the method where the exception was thrown due to possible subsequent errors caused by bogus data. For example, what if you could neutralise the throw in your code and the next lines of code would do something like this:
if(arg == null)
throw new Exception("exception");
// We magically neutralise the exception and are here with arg == null
arg.someMethod(); // NullPointerException
double x = 11.0 / Integer.parseInt(arg); // NumberFormatException
anotherMethod(arg); // might throw exception if arg == null
Do you get my point? You take incalculable risks by continuing control flow here, assuming you can at all. Now what are the alternatives?
Let us assume you know exactly that a value of null does not do any harm here. Then why not just catch the exception with an after() throwing advice?
Or if null is harmful and you know about it, why not intercept method execution and overwrite the parameter so as to avoid the exception to begin with?
Speculatively assuming that the method content is a black box to you and you are trying to do some hacky things here, you can use an around() advice and from there call proceed() multiple times with different argument values (e.g. some authentication token or password) until the called method does not throw an exception anymore.
As you see, there are many ways to solve your practical problem depending on what exactly the problem is and what you want to achieve.
Having said all this, now let us return to your initial technical question of not catching, but actually neutralising an exception, i.e. somehow avoiding its being thrown at all. Because the AspectJ language does not contain technical means to do what you want (thank God!), you can look at other tools which can manipulate Java class files in a more low-level fashion. I have never used them productively, but I am pretty sure that you can do what you want using BCEL or Javassist.