Is stubbing out a catch block ever a valid thing to do?

Code :

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JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea();
 
highlightAll.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
	public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) {
		textArea.selectAll();
		Highlighter highlighter = textArea.getHighlighter();
		highlighter.removeAllHighlights();
		try {
			highlighter.addHighlight(0, textArea.getText().length(), DefaultHighlighter.DefaultPainter);
		} catch (BadLocationException exception) {
			// BadLocationException stubbed out - exception needs to be handled but can't occur here.
		}
	}
});

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In the above code the JVM forces me to handle the BadLocationException that might be thrown by the call to the DefaultHighlighter. But, as I'm highlighting all text in the JTextArea, I pass in a start location of 0 and a stop location of the length of whatever text happens to be in the text area. As such, to my eyes, this code would never result in a BadLocation being passed and therefore would never result in a BadLocationException.

A couple of questions then:

Have I even understood the purpose of the possible cause of the BadLocatonExample exception correctly or is my assumption about bad start and stop locations incorrect to start with?

If not am I also correct in that, due to the nature of what I'm attempting in the code, the exception could never be thrown?

And lastly, if I am right about there being no possibility of the exception being thrown is it therefore valid to stub out the catch block as per my inline comment in the code?

If the Exception will never be thrown, what's the harm in putting in a simple error message or something? There are four options:

The error never occurs and you don't do anything about it: everything is ok
The error never occurs and you DO do something about it: everything is ok
The error occurs and you don't do anything about it: this is bad
The error occurs and you DO do something about it: everything is ok

The point is, the only "bad" scenario is if you don't have anything in that block. What are you saving by keeping it empty? And I assure you that cases that you think will never throw an error invariable eventually do. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches by getting into the habit of never having an empty catch block.

Code :

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	catch (BadLocationException exception) {
		JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "o_O an error that can't happen just happened", "Impossible Error", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
	}

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Adding code like the above for the sake of adding something surely doesn't really achieve anything but I take your point, the good habits are the ones worth forming when you're starting out.

In fact I had added code just like the above (only with a slightly more relevant error message) originally but ended up with a niggling feeling of having added something pointless - all those many hours trying to write the tightest possible assembly language code has left me averse to adding anything I deem unnecessary I suppose. :)

Why not just a simple exception.printStackTrace()?

Yeah, that makes much more sense to me - appreciated. :)