Previous: Earley items, Up: Terms [Contents][Index]
An application behavior is a behavior on which it is intended that the design of applications will be based. In this document, a behavior is an application behavior unless otherwise stated. We sometimes say that “applications may expect” a certain behavior to emphasize that that behavior is an application behavior.
After an irrecoverable failure, the behavior of a Libmarpa application is undefined, so that there are no behaviors that can be relied on for normal application processing, and therefore, there are no application behaviors. In this circumstance, some of the application behaviors become diagnostic behaviors. A diagnostic behavior is a behavior that this document suggests that the programmer may attempt in the face of an irrecoverable failure, for purposes of testing, diagnostics and debugging. Diagnostic behaviors are hoped for, rather than expected, and intended to allow the programmer to deal with irrecoverable failures as smoothly as possible. (See Failure.)
In this document, a behavior is a diagnostic behavior only if that is specifically indicated. Applications should not be designed to rely on diagnostic behaviors. We sometimes say that the application “may attempt” a certain behavior to emphasize that that behavior is a diagnostic behavior.