Operating System Design, 3rd Edition

24 Exception Handling

I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.

— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

24.1 Introduction

This chapter discusses the topic of exception handling. Because the underlying hardware dictates exactly how an exception is reported, the techniques an operating system uses to handle exceptions depend entirely on the hardware. Therefore, we will describe how exceptions are handled on the example platforms, and leave readers to explore other systems and architectures.

In general, exception handling is concerned with details rather than concepts. Therefore, the chapter contains fewer broad concepts than earlier chapters. The reader should think of it as an example, and be aware that both the details and techniques may ...