[Boost-users] Re: Guidelines for effective exception usage

"Thorsten Ottosen" writes:

"David Abrahams" wrote in message news:u7jro6r4d.fsf@boost-consulting.com... | "Peter Dimov" writes: | | > Victor A. Wagner Jr. wrote: | >> OK, blunt point. | >> the standard is (insert favorite expletive or "in error") if it | >> allows use of std::runtime_error to terminate the program due to low | >> memory situations (run out of memory (due to copying) during stack | >> unwinding). | > | > It does not allow such a thing. | | No? It seemed to me that it does, for perversely low QOI | implementations.

hm...funny. I talked with Matt Austern and Peter Becker about this in Sydney. They made me believe that if the copy-constrctor of a string throws in this line

throw std::run_time_error( "foo" );

then it wouldn't call terminate, but instead throw the wrong exception, namely (probably) a bad_alloc.

Is that a misunderstanding?

No, that's correct. In question was whether an exception can be thrown from within the run_time_error's copy ctor during unwinding, and whether that would cause termination. It's no longer clear to me that such an implementation would be legal. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting http://www.boost-consulting.com