reception

n 1: the manner in which something is greeted; "she did not

expect the cold reception she received from her

superiors" [syn: {response}]

2: a formal party of people; as after a wedding

3: quality or fidelity of a received broadcast

4: the act of receiving [syn: {receipt}, {receiving}]

5: the act of catching a pass in football; "the tight end made

a great reception on the 20 yard line"

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)