Phoenix - INRIA Research Group

A Domain-Specific Approach to Architecturing Error Handling in Pervasive Computing

Julien Mercadal, Quentin Enard, Charles Consel, Nicolas Loriant

Abstract

The challenging nature of error handling constantly escalates as a growing number of environments consists of networked devices and software components. In these environments, errors cover a uniquely large spectrum of situations related to each layer ranging from hardware to distributed platforms, to software components.  Handling errors becomes a daunting task for programmers, whose outcome is unpredictable. Scaling up error handling requires to raise the level of abstraction beyond the code level and the try-catch construct, approaching error handling at the software architecture level.

We propose a novel approach that relies on an Architecture Description Language (ADL), which is  extended with error-handling declarations. To further raise the level of abstraction, our approach revolves around a domain-specific architectural pattern commonly used in pervasive computing. Error handling is decomposed into components dedicated to platform-wide, error-recovery strategies. At the application level, descriptions of functional components include declarations dedicated to error handling.

We have implemented a compiler for an ADL extended with error-handling declarations. It produces customized programming
frameworks that drive and support the programming of error handling. Our approach has been validated with a variety of
applications for building automation.