International Business Machines Corporation

William Peter Carney

Laurence Edward England

Daniel Rodman Hicks

Brian Joseph Owings

Jeffrey A Grantz

Eric Lynn Porter

Alfred William Shannon

Robert Milton Smith

William N Tindall

Ralph O Conder

George Lausman

Robert Aaron Wilson

Gary John Hochmuth

A method and means for handling events in a computer system which occur during the execution of programs including routines prepared in a plurality of computer programming languages is described. The number and identity of each unique computer programming language used in the preparation of the program is determined using a language list contained in the application program. A unique event handling means (event handler) is initialized for each unique computer programming language used in the program. As the program executes selected events of interest to the event handlers are detected. The parameters associated with the selected event are determined. Optionally the detected events may be divided into two types: broadcast or targeted. Broadcast events are sent to all event handlers (except the debug event handler), whereas, the targeted events are sent to a single event handler. An event code and the relevant parameters are passed to the event handlers so that each event handler may perform whatever actions are appropriate for that event in the context of the programming language being supported. The event handlers generate an appropriate return code indicating the success, failure, or non-processing of the event and, for selected events, return request information. The invention provides for a separate specialized debug event handler.

Event handling in a high level programming language environment

A condition handling method and means capable of handling programs written in a plurality computer programming languages is created by a set of routines which implement the Common Condition Handling (CCH) function. These routines have entry points which are declared as external or entry variables which enables application programs to link to them. The compilers and application programs can then interact with the condition handling process by calling or branching to the entry points in the common condition handling code when the program is executing. Language specific condition handling routines and user condition handlers are invoked using a last-in-first-out (LIFO) queue to associate the handlers with the current stack frame. Any handler may respond to the CCH with one of three types of requests: Resume, Percolate, and Promote. A separate means is provided for registering Exit Handlers and to move the resume cursor.

Condition handling in a multi-language computer program

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William Peter Carney