Masking errors through software robustness

Creating reliable software is a major objective of Software Engineering. For programs, to be robust and reliable, each program module must be constructed to behave reliably under a wide variety of circumstances. Robustness property can play a good role in the construction of such modules. One aspect of reliability is the level of robustness of a program, i.e. its ability to handle exceptions such as unexpected input and other unforeseen circumstances. Therefore software which is not robust is not reliable. The aim of this paper is to devise a framework for discussing robustness and its possible measurement. It also discusses various levels of robustness. Robustness is defined here as the concept of handling user input, whether faulty or not, in a way that allows the programs to process the errors and at the same time proceed without crashing.