Refer to this stackoverflow question if you'd like help understanding the difference between a static block and specific static initializers.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9379426/java-when-is-a-static-initialization-block-useful

I found this useful in comparison to the droves of wordy, example-less explanations (I'm looking at you, Oracle Docs.)

Remember, you need to either use a try catch block or add "throws (Exception)" to a method name in order to throw a checked exception. In this case, there is no method name for the static initializer block, so you must use a try catch!

See code below:

MyCode{

static Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in);
static boolean flag = true;
static int B = input.nextInt();
static int H = input.nextInt();

static{
    try{
        if(B <= 0 || H <= 0){
            flag = false;
            throw new Exception("Breadth and height must be positive");
        }
    }catch(Exception e){
        System.out.println(e);
    }

}

}

What a horrible program is this!!!!!!!

In my opinion there should be ab better indicator in the description, that the main method contains valuable information like the "flag" variable. Didn´t notice it until the first error, which could be very confusing for new programmers

System.out... is not an exception! That is a string output to console.