Automatic Localization of Potential Faults for Java Runtime Exceptions

Exceptions are unintended or undesired events that occur during program execution and have a negative effect on the robustness of the program. In the Java language, exceptions are divided into two types: checked exceptions and unchecked exceptions. A checked exception is required to be handled at compile time whereas an unchecked exception occurs at run time, so it is also called a runtime exception. Runtime exceptions can cause serious consequences like system crashes. Today's programs are still likely to contain a large number of runtime exceptions, such as null pointer exceptions and arithmetic exceptions in real-world bugs, indicating that the error-checking strategy is insufficient to clear the occurrence of runtime exceptions. In this paper, we propose a potential fault localization approach for Java runtime exceptions. It mainly uses regular expressions to support the detection of code fragments containing such exceptions and checklists to help the developer examine whether the exception may occur to cause errors.