Interview: Generics and Type Reification

InterviewQuestion.java

import java.sql.SQLException;

public class Mocker<T extends Exception> {
    private void pleaseThrow(final Exception e) throws T {
        throw (T) e;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            new Mocker<RuntimeException>().pleaseThrow(new SQLException());
        } catch (final SQLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

What happens with this Java code?

(1) Throws ClassCastException because SQLException is not instanceof RuntimeException
(2) Compilation fails because no SQLException is thrown
(3) The program prints the stacktrace of the newly thrown SQLException
(4) Compilation fails because we cannot cast SQLException to RuntimeException