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I am writing a technical paper and I am not sure whether I write them as fault or failure. Because as far as I know FAULT is an error by a programmer. This fault/error may or may not crash the program. If the fault crash the program then it is failure. The question is if I get divisionbyzero exception, should I write it as fault or failure? Thanks

Dr. Mian
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    I wasn't aware of such a distinction. Is there some context in which you are writing within? (Having performed a quick Google search, consider looking here: http://vikashazrati.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/fault-failure-error/) – BlackVegetable Oct 06 '13 at 22:18
  • IMHO it is a **fault**, because the programmer did not check if the divisor was 0. – BackSlash Oct 06 '13 at 22:19

3 Answers3

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This is a distinction without a difference, or a distinction that only exists in your mind. The only relevant consideration is that the program didn't execute correctly. And it certainly isn't true to say that failures are only caused by programmer errors.

user207421
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I would suggest you to categorize it by Error/Exception.

Exception can be handled and are of two types :

  • Checked You handle the exception in your method using try/catch/finally
  • Unchecked You make the caller handle this by using throws statement.

You cannot implicitly handle errors in your program

Crickcoder
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After some research I found that fault is an error made by a programmer and it is not necessary that the system crashes if the fault is executed during run time. While a failure is an error which causes the program to crash or causes run time exception.

So if we are testing a program and we consider a crash of program as error then such error will be called as failure. However if we are looking for other errors which do not cause system crash then such errors are fault.

Dr. Mian
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