Re: dynamic_cast & Exceptions

From:
Ulrich Eckhardt <eckhardt@satorlaser.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Mon, 5 Mar 2007 04:38:27 CST
Message-ID:
<6a4tb4-eb3.ln1@satorlaser.homedns.org>
Al wrote:

class A {};
class B : public A {};

A* foo();

int main() {
     dynamic_cast<B&>(*foo());
     return 0;
}

Modulo any typos, this should work,


No: A does not have any virtual function, therefore it doesn't have any RTTI
and you can't dynamic_cast it. That's not your question though, and I'll
assume that it does e.g. have a virtual dtor or some other virtual
function.

assuming foo() returns what is really a B*. Next, if foo() returns
a different derived class of A*, dynamic_cast is supposed to throw
(since it's a reference).


I don't agree with your idea of "works". The code is legal C++ (though maybe
not good C++) and even if it doesn't return a B it will work, just that
that means it will throw a std::bad_cast.

However, what happens if:

i) foo() calls assert();
ii) foo() throws an exception.


In both cases, foo() doesn't return and the dynamic_cast is not evaluated.

Does the dynamic_cast exception override the user exception/assert?


The dynamic_cast is not evaluated, so it doesn't come into effect.

Is it UB, or implementation-specific?


Neither, both are well-defined. BTW: note that throwing an exception that is
not caught will terminate the program, but even if it was caught it
wouldn't change anything here.

Uli

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