Exception handling during asynchronous method invocation

Abstract

Exception handling mechanisms provided by sequential programming languages rely upon the call stack for the propagation of exceptions. Unfortunately, this is inadequate for handling exceptions thrown from asynchronously invoked methods. For instance, the invoking method may no longer be executing when the asynchronously invoked method throws an exception. We address this problem by requiring the specification of handlers for exceptions thrown from asynchronously invoked methods. Our solution also supports handling exceptions thrown after an early reply from a method and handling exceptions after forwarding the responsibility to reply. The JR programming language supports the exception handling model discussed in this paper.