Article

Combining the robustness of checked exceptions with the flexibility of unchecked exceptions using anchored exception declarations

Authors:

Marko van Dooren,

Eric SteegmansAuthors Info & Claims

OOPSLA '05: Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications

Pages 455 - 471

https://doi.org/10.1145/1094811.1094847

Published: 12 October 2005 Publication History

Abstract

Ever since their invention 30 years ago, checked exceptions have been a point of much discussion. On the one hand, they increase the robustness of software by preventing the manifestation of unanticipated checked exceptions at run-time. On the other hand, they decrease the adaptability of software because they must be propagated explicitly, and must often be handled even if they cannot be signalled.We show that the problems with checked exceptions are caused by a lack of expressiveness of the exceptional return type of a method, which currently dictates a copy & paste style. We add the required expressiveness by introducing anchored exception declarations, which allow the exceptional behavior of a method to be declared relative to that of others. We present the formal semantics of anchored exception declarations, along with the necessary rules for ensuring compile-time safety, and give a proof of soundness. We show that anchored exception declarations do not violate the principle of information hiding when used properly, and provide a guideline for when to use them.We have implemented anchored exception declarations in Cappuccino, which is an extension to the ClassicJava programming language.

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Index Terms

Combining the robustness of checked exceptions with the flexibility of unchecked exceptions using anchored exception declarations
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development techniques
      1. Error handling and recovery
  2. Software notations and tools
    1. Formal language definitions
      1. Semantics
    2. General programming languages
      1. Language features
2. Theory of computation
  1. Semantics and reasoning
    1. Program semantics

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cover image ACM Conferences

OOPSLA '05: Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications

October 2005

562 pages

ISBN:1595930310

DOI:10.1145/1094811

Conference Chairs:
Ralph Johnson
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
,
Elisa Baniassad
Chinese University of Hong Kong
,
Program Chairs:
Richard P. Gabriel
Sun Microsystems Laboratories
,
James Noble
Victoria University of Wellington
,
Brian Marick
Exampler Consulting

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 40, Issue 10
Proceedings of the 20th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object oriented programming systems languages and applications
October 2005
531 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1103845
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2005 ACM.

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Published: 12 October 2005

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https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00053
Gordon C(2021)Polymorphic Iterable Sequential Effect SystemsACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/345027243:1(1-79)Online publication date: 17-Apr-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3450272
Inostroza Pvan der Storm TBoix EGabriel R(2018)JEff: objects for effectProceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3276954.3276955(111-124)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3276954.3276955
Zhang YSalvaneschi GBeightol QLiskov BMyers A(2016)Accepting blame for safe tunneled exceptionsACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2980983.290808651:6(281-295)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2980983.2908086
Zhang YSalvaneschi GBeightol QLiskov BMyers AKrintz CBerger E(2016)Accepting blame for safe tunneled exceptionsProceedings of the 37th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/2908080.2908086(281-295)Online publication date: 2-Jun-2016
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Cacho NCésar TFilipe TSoares ECassio ASouza RGarcia IBarbosa EGarcia AJalote PBriand LHoek A(2014)Trading robustness for maintainability: an empirical study of evolving c# programsProceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/2568225.2568308(584-595)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
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