Engineering efficient exception handling for android applications

Abstract

The popularity of the Android platform can be attributed to their ability to run apps that leverage the many capabilities of mobile devices. Android applications are mostly written in Java, however they are very different from standard Java applications, with different abstractions, multiple entry points, and also have a different form of communication between components. These differences in the structure of Android applications have had negative effects on the user experience in terms of low robustness. In terms of robustness, the exception handling mechanism for the Android platform has two main problems: (1) the “Terminate ALL" approach and (2) a lack of a holistic view on exceptional behavior. Exception handling is strongly related to program robustness. In addition to robustness, energy consumption and performance are other non-functional requirements that need to be taken into account during development. These three requirements can directly affect the quality of the user experience and the quality of the functioning of the applications. In this context this work proposes a general methodology to efficient engineering of Android applications and an EHM called DroidEH to support the methodology and to improve the robustness of Android applications. Studies have been carried out to understand the impact of exception handling on the robustness and energy consumption of Android applications. The evaluation of the methodology showed that it is satisfactory in achieving the objective of allowing the developer to make decisions taking into account these non-functional requirements and to determine through the trade-off between these requirements, different operation modes that can be implemented in the application using the DroidEH. Furthermore, it was observed that the use of DroidEH in applications can enhance their robustness.