|
http://boost.org/more/generic_exception_safety.html
[This paper] explores the meaning of exception-safety, reveals surprising myths about exceptions and genericity, describes valuable tools for reasoning about program correctness, and outlines an automated testing procedure for verifying exception-safety.
David Abrahams discusses real-world use of exceptions in the C++ Standard Template Library, but the points are also valid for Java and similar exceptions mechanisms.
Among other information, it introduces three levels of exception safety...
- The basic guarantee: that the invariants of the component are preserved, and no resources are leaked.
- The strong guarantee: that the operation has either completed successfully or thrown an exception, leaving the program state exactly as it was before the operation started.
- The no-throw guarantee: that the operation will not throw an exception.
...and discusses when they are appropriate.
I really liked it because it is the first paper that makes these points explicit.
PS: The paper is from the excellent
C++ Boost website. Their materials are high quality and a good read for anyone, especially "Java softies" like me ;)
Cheers.
|
Exception-Safety in Generic Components