SYSTEMS AND METHODS AND IMPLEMENTING EXCEPTION HANDLING USING EXCEPTION REGISTRATION RECORDS STORED IN STACK MEMORY

A development system having a compiler that allows programmers and software developers to more efficiently develop compiled applications with runtime exception handling support is described. The compiler implements methods for handling of exceptions, which may occur during runtime execution of the program. In an exemplary embodiment, the system of the present invention registers exception handling information (e.g., an Exception Registration Record) with the underlying operating system, during execution of prolog code for each function (or other discrete section of code). The method is implemented so that the Exception Registration Record (ERR) resides at the bottom of the stack (or top of stack, for stack-based systems whose system stack grows upward) so that the information is positioned at one end of the stack during execution of the function. In this manner, the method allows the system of the present invention to readily and efficiently register an exception handler with the operating system, by merely executing a series of efficient machine instructions for pushing data members of the ERR onto the stack (including "pushing" the value of zero for data members which are to be cleared).