programming, operating system A program execution error
in abrupt termination of the program.
It may be possible for the program to catch some such errors,
invalid memory access (an attempt to write to read-only memory
or an attempt to read memory outside of the program's
addressspace), may always cause control to pass to the operating
system without allowing the program an opportunity to handle
the error. The details depend on the language's
run-timesystem and the operating system.
(1997-08-03)