Re: Do exception classes still need no-fail copy constructors, in C++0x?

From:
howard.hinnant@gmail.com (Howard Hinnant)
Newsgroups:
comp.std.c++
Date:
Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:13:42 GMT
Message-ID:
<howard.hinnant-CE38E3.12051723072007@johnf2.biosci.ohio-state.edu>
In article <46A1E5DD.8F11AD8C@this.is.invalid>,
 noreply@this.is.invalid (Niels Dekker - no return address) wrote:

When writing a custom exception class in C++03, it's recommended to have
its copy constructor supporting the no-fail guarantee, to prevent the
exception handling mechanism from calling std::terminate(). [E.g., Herb
Sutter & Andrei Alexandrescu - C++ Coding Standards, item 32] Is that
recommendation still relevant in C++0x? I got the impressing that in
C++0x, it's good enough to just make sure that the exception class has a
non-failing move constructor.

Should an STL implementation still take care of proving non-failing copy
constructors for exception classes like std::runtime_error, in C++0x?
Or would it be sufficient to provide non-failing move constructors for
these classes?


The following program in conceptgcc:

#include <iostream>

class A
{
    A(const A&);
    A& operator=(const A&);
public:
    A() {}
    A(A&&) {}
};

void f()
{
    A a;
    throw a;
}

int main()
{
    try
    {
        f();
    }
    catch (A&)
    {
        std::cout << "Pass\n";
    }
}

Outputs "Pass". Furthermore it doesn't compile if the move constructor
is commented out. That being said, I don't honestly know the answer to
your question. Certainly if you catch by value, instead of by
reference, you'll need a copy ctor.

Also if you use the (brand new, N2179):

   std::exception_ptr e = std::current_exception();

You may need a copy constructor as well. And making your exception
types usable with std::current_exception() is probably motivation enough
to keep them copyable (non-mutable refcounted strings are still a
valuable tool :-)).

-Howard

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