Strong exception-safety for Java-like languages

Abstract

"Exception-safety strong guarantee: The operation has either completed successfully or thrown an exception, leaving the program state exactly as it was before the operation started." David Abrahams [1] The above definition of strong exception-safety comes from the world of C++, but it can be applied to any language. Because the exception-safety strong guarantee plays a central role in easing the development of robust software, we have designed a type-system able to capture its essence. We present a lightweight type system for Java-like languages that, by introducing a simple modifier to types, enforces programs to satisfy the strong guarantee.