Re: Exception handling?

From:
nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:43:19 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<bb851c2e-b503-457d-b051-8c1becfee41e@g38g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>
On 20 Feb, 19:45, "Alf P. Steinbach" <al...@start.no> wrote:

* mlt:

In the constructor of a class I run various test to check that the inpu=

t

data is valid, else I throw an exception:

...
...
MyTest(
         int const k
       , int const h
       , U const & u
       , U const & v
       , P const & c
       )


I hate that coding convention...

     {

   int controlnum = c.size() * c[0].size();
   int basisnum = (u() - k) * (v.size() - h);

       if(k<= 0 || h<=0)
         throw std::invalid_argument("k h must be greater tha=

n zero");

       if(uknots.size() <= 0)
         throw std::invalid_argument("u was empty");

       if(vknots.size() <= 0)
         throw std::invalid_argument("v was empty");

       if(controls.size() <= 0)
         throw std::invalid_argument("c was empty");
...
...
     }

The first thing that needs to be done is to catch the exceptions so the
error messages gets printed to the user. But how do I make sure the
right message is printed, do I make some sort of exception switch?


int main ()
{
    try
    {
         getArgs (k, h, u, v, c);
         Mytest (k, h, u, v, c);
    }
    catch (std::invalid_argument& e) // could catch std::exception
    {
          std::cerr << "invalid argument " << e.what() << std::endl;
          return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

In a small program made just for your own use you simply use the
std::exception::what() method.

But in a larger program it's generally *not a good idea* to transfer UI m=

essages

in exceptions.

There are many reasons for that, including internationalization problems,=

 and

that code that throws generally doesn't know anything about high level go=

als,

and that it would be in conflict with use of exceptions for programmers, =

and so on.

what would you typically throw?

Ask yourself, what business has the user knowing about arguments to MyTes=

t?

And by the way, for the specific tests above I'd use 'assert', not except=

ions.

you don't know what the source of the arguments is.
This might be some long running server that's been handed
a bunch of parameters by a human user. assert() may not
be appropriate.

--
Nick Keighley

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