Abnormal Events Handling for Dependable Embedded Systems

In this paper, we analyze the difficulties of handling abnormal events. We introduce a framework that integrate the concepts of design by contract, exception safety and fault tolerance and from then, obtain a set of criterions for the design of a mechanism that integrate error code, exception and executable assertions for the handling of different types of abnormal events. From these criterions, a proposal for a novel exception mechanism adequate for C written embedded systems is presented. Finally, we analyze the advantages of our mechanism over the existing mechanisms and over other languages or previous extension to C