Automatic fault injection into a JAVA virtual machine (JVM)

A system of automatically injecting faults into a JAVA virtual machine (JVM) when the JVM is executing a JAVA program that has JAVA objects wherein each of the JAVA objects has a class, at least one method, and at least one attribute, comprising:

• an automatic fault injector coupled to the JVM,
• wherein the JAVA program is interpreted by the JVM and the JAVA program is initiated to inject the faults by determining locations within the JAVA program to where respective faults are to be injected,
• wherein all the faults are found from the JAVA objects by traversing the class for each of the JAVA objects and searching for all exceptions from the class, the at least one method, and the at least one attribute,
• wherein determination of whether and when one of the respective faults should be injected are made, and
• wherein one of the exceptions is automatically and timely triggered to inject one of the respective faults by the automatic fault injector at one of the corresponding locations when the one of the corresponding locations has been reached and when it has determined that the one of the respective faults should be injected at an appropriate time.

A program product for automatically injecting faults into a JAVA virtual machine (JVM) when the JVM is executing a JAVA program that has JAVA objects wherein each of the JAVA objects has a class, at least one method, and at least one attribute, comprising:

• instruction means for initiating the JAVA program to inject the faults by determining locations within the JAVA program to where respective faults are to be injected,
• instruction means for finding and maintaining all the faults by traversing the class for each of the JAVA objects and searching for all exceptions from the class, the at least one method, and the at least one attribute,
• instruction means for determining whether and when one of the respective faults should be injected,
• instruction means for automatically and timely triggering one of the exceptions to inject the one of the respective faults at one of the corresponding locations when the one of the corresponding locations has been reached and when it has determined that the one of the respective faults should be injected at an appropriate time, and
• computer usable media bearing said instruction means.