Approach to Evaluating Exception Handling of Programs

To solve the problems that the exception handling code is hard to test and maintain and that it affects the robustness and reliability of software, a method for evaluating the exception handling of programs is presented. The exception propagation graph (EPG) that describes the large programs with exception handling constructs is proposed by simplifying the control flow graph and it is applied to a case to verify its validity. According to the EPG, the exception handling code that never executes is identified; the points that are the most critical to controlling exception propagation are found; and the irrational exception handling code is corrected. The constructing algorithm for the EPG is given; thus, this provides a basis for automatically constructing the EPG and automatically correcting the irrational exception handling code.