exception

n 1: a deliberate act of omission; "with the exception of the

children, everyone was told the news" [syn: {exclusion}]

2: an instance that does not conform to a rule or

generalization; "all her children were brilliant; the only

exception was her last child"; "an exception tests the

rule"

3: grounds for adverse criticism; "his authority is beyond

exception"

exception

An error condition that changes the normal {flow of control}

in a program. An exception may be generated ("raised") by

{hardware} or {software}. Hardware exceptions include

{reset}, {interrupt} or a signal from a {memory management

unit}. Exceptions may be generated by the {arithmetic logic

unit} or {floating-point unit} for numerical errors such as

divide by zero, {overflow} or {underflow} or {instruction

decoding} errors such as privileged, reserved, {trap} or

undefined instructions. Software exceptions are even more

varied and the term could be applied to any kind of error

checking which alters the normal behaviour of the program.

(1994-10-31)