What is the Difference Between Interrupt and Exception?
🆚 Go to Comparative Table 🆚The main difference between an interrupt and an exception lies in their origin. An interrupt is an unexpected event from outside the processor, while an exception is an unexpected event from within the processor. Both interrupts and exceptions disrupt the normal flow of instruction execution, but they are handled differently.
Interrupts:
- These are hardware interrupts.
- They are program control interruptions caused by external devices or hardware faults.
- Occurrences of hardware interrupts usually disable other hardware interrupts.
- Interrupts can be caused by either software or hardware faults.
Exceptions:
- These are software interrupts.
- They are synchronous events originating in software.
- Conditions like division by zero, a breakpoint, or invalid memory access occur synchronously with the execution of a program.
- Exceptions can be triggered by an exception or error in a process.
In summary, interrupts and exceptions are both unexpected events that disrupt the normal flow of instruction execution, but they originate from different sources. Interrupts come from outside the processor and are usually hardware-related, while exceptions originate from within the processor and are typically software-related.
Comparative Table: Interrupt vs Exception
Here is a table comparing the differences between interrupts and exceptions:
| Feature | Interrupt | Exception |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Hardware | Software |
| Occurrence | Hardware interrupts usually disable other hardware interrupts. | Exceptions can occur anywhere in the system, the processor, or within a program. |
| Handling | After returning from the interrupt handler routine, the program execution resumes at the instruction after the interrupted instruction. | An exception handler is run when normal program execution is suspended. |
| Types | There are four classes of exception: interrupt, trap, fault, and abort. | Faults, traps, and aborts are types of exceptions. |
Interrupts are hardware-based, while exceptions are software-based. Interrupts are used to handle external events, such as serial ports and keyboards, while exceptions are used to handle issues within the system, processor, or program.
- Interrupt vs Trap
- System Call vs Interrupt
- Exception vs Error
- Exemption vs Exception
- Checked Exception vs Runtime Exception
- Accept vs Except
- Interjection vs Exclamation
- Checked vs Unchecked Exception in Java
- Conjunction vs Interjection
- Intellij vs Eclipse
- Class vs Interface
- Expect vs Wait
- Incident vs Event
- C vs C++
- break vs continue in Java
- Cause vs Effect
- Instinct vs Intuition
- Impact vs Effect
- Impulse vs Impact