Exception handled in constructor propagated back. How? - c++

I have a class whose constructor will throw an exception. I also have a catch block to handle that exception. But still, I see that the exception is propagated back to the caller even though it is handled. I know, there should be an exception to inform the caller that construction failed. But in this case how does it (re-throw) happen?
class Test
{
public:
Test()
try
{
std::cout << "in child constructor" << std::endl;
throw 3.2;
}
catch(int &e)
{
std::cout << "in int catch: " << e << std::endl;
}
catch (double &e)
{
std::cout << "in double catch: " << e << std::endl;
}
};
int main (void)
{
try
{
Test obj;
}
catch (int &e)
{
std::cout << "in main int catch: " << e << std::endl;
}
catch (double &e)
{
std::cout << "in main double catch: " << e << std::endl;
}
return 0;
}
The output I got is
in child constructor
in double catch: 3.2
in main double catch: 3.2

This is correct according to standard. Section 15.3, point 15 of n3337.pdf reads:
The currently handled exception is rethrown if control reaches the end of a handler of the function-try-block of a constructor or destructor. Otherwise, a function returns when control reaches the end of a handler for the function-try-block (6.6.3). Flowing off the end of a function-try-block is equivalent to a return with no value; this results in undefined behavior in a value-returning function (6.6.3).
You can fully catch and prevent an exception from propagating inside constructor/destructor body. You cannot however catch the exceptions thrown from base class/member constructors/destructors this way.

Related

Do you need to know what exception is going to occur to handle them in C++?

<C++>In exception handling, do you need to know what exception and where an exception is going to occur? Can you make a code which will print and notify us that an exception occurred somewhere in the program. I mean I have a program in which I don't know if an exception will occur or not, if one was to occur, then it will print to notify us.
Exception handling is something you should design for, and in fact it works very well together with RAII (https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/raii).
(Notr On embedded platforms using exceptions, is not so popular because of some runtime overhead). What I personally like about exceptions is that it separates error handling from the normal program flow (there will be hardly any if then else checks when done right)
// Exception handling should be part of your overal design.And many standard library functions can throw exceptions, It is always up to you where you handle them.
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <stdexcept>
int get_int_with_local_exception_handling()
{
do
{
try
{
std::cout << "Input an integer (local exception handling, enter a text for exception): ";
std::string input;
std::cin >> input;
// stoi is a function that can throw exceptions
// look at the documentation https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/string/basic_string/stol
// and look for exceptions.
//
int value = std::stoi(input);
// if input was ok, no exception was thrown so we can return the value to the client.
return value;
}
// catch by const reference, it avoids copies of the exception
// and makes sure you cannot change the content
catch (const std::invalid_argument& e)
{
// std::exceptions always have a what function with readable info
std::cout << "handling std::invalid_argument, " << e.what() << "\n";
}
catch (const std::out_of_range& e)
{
std::cout << "handling std::out_of_range, " << e.what() << "\n";
}
} while (true);
}
int get_int_no_exception_handling()
{
std::cout << "Input an integer (without exception handling, enter a text for exception): ";
std::string input;
std::cin >> input;
int value = std::stoi(input);
return value;
}
int main()
{
try
{
// this function shows you can handle exceptions locally
// to keep program running
auto value1 = get_int_with_local_exception_handling();
std::cout << "your for input was : " << value1 << "\n";
// this function shows that exceptions can be thrown without
// catching, but then the end up on the next exception handler
// on the stack, which in this case is the one in main
auto value2 = get_int_no_exception_handling();
std::cout << "your input was : " << value1 << "\n";
return 0;
}
catch (const std::exception& e)
{
std::cout << "Unhandled exception caught, program terminating : " << e.what() << "\n";
return -1;
}
catch (...)
{
std::cout << "Unknown, and unhandled exception caught, program terminating\n";
}
}
Yes and no.
No, because any exception thrown via throw some_exception; can be catched via catch(...).
Yes, because catch(...) is not very useful. You only know that there was an excpetion but not more.
Typically exceptions carry information on the cause that you want to use in the catch. Only as a last resort or when you need to make abolutely sure not to miss any excpetion you should use catch(...):
try {
might_throw_unknown_exceptions();
} catch(std::exception& err) {
std::cout << "there was a runtime error: " << err.what();
} catch(...) {
std::cout << "an unknown excpetion was thrown.";
}
The C++ standard library uses inheritance only sparingly. Exceptions is only place where it is used extensively: All standard exceptions inherit from std::exception and it is good practice to inherit also custom exceptions from it.

Reference Arguments on Exception Stack Unwinding

At a point in my code, I pass a *this to a method foo(const MyClass& arg). An exception is thrown deep inside this foo, but although a syntactically correct try-catch block exists up the stack, it gets neither handled (a message should have been emitted in that case), nor the process crashes. From the debugging logs, I can see that related thread gets stuck, although the rest of the threads keep going.
I've been through stack unwinding documentation, and somewhere I've seen that arguments to functions are also considered to be auto variables, and get destroyed during the unwinding process. That brings me to the question: what happens when I pass a const reference of this (inside which there is a corresponding catch block) to a method where an exception is thrown? Is it possible that the ref gets the caller object destroyed, and catch block is now unreachable even though stack unwinding has begun already?
Let me add some pseudoish-code:
void MyClass0::someFunc(void)
{
try
{
MyClass1 obj1;
obj1.someOtherFunc(*this);
// Some other stuff
}
catch (MyException&)
{
std::cout << "Handling exception...";
// Whatever... This message is not emitted.
}
}
void MyClass1::someOtherFunc(const MyClass0& argObj0)
{
// Some functions that eventually throw an unhandled MyException
}
Thanks in advance...
EDIT:
OK, trying to generate an executable code for reference, I believe I pretty much answered my own question.
Here's the code:
#include "sandbox.h"
#include <iostream>
MyClass0::MyClass0(void)
{
std::cout << "\nConstructing MyClass0";
}
MyClass0::~MyClass0(void)
{
std::cout << "\nDestructing MyClass0";
}
void MyClass0::trustIssues(void)
{
std::cout << "\nEntering " << __FUNCTION__;
try
{
MyClass1 myClass1;
myClass1.unwaryFunction(*this);
}
catch (MyException& exc)
{
std::cout << "\nException caught in " << __FUNCTION__;
std::cout << "\nLeaving " << __FUNCTION__ << " from inside catch block.";
return;
}
std::cout << "\nLeaving " << __FUNCTION__;
}
MyClass1::MyClass1(void)
{
std::cout << "\nConstructing MyClass1";
}
MyClass1::~MyClass1(void)
{
std::cout << "\nDestructing MyClass1";
}
void MyClass1::unwaryFunction(MyClass0& argClass0)
{
std::cout << "\nEntering " << __FUNCTION__;
suicidalFunction();
std::cout << "\nLeaving " << __FUNCTION__;
}
void suicidalFunction(void)
{
std::cout << "\nEntering " << __FUNCTION__;
MyException myException;
throw myException;
std::cout << "\nLeaving " << __FUNCTION__;
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
MyClass0 myClass0;
myClass0.trustIssues();
return 0;
}
The output has been:
Constructing MyClass0
Entering MyClass0::trustIssues
Constructing MyClass1
Entering MyClass1::unwaryFunction
Entering suicidalFunction
Destructing MyClass1
Exception caught in MyClass0::trustIssues
Leaving MyClass0::trustIssues from inside catch block.
This implies that the *this argument does not get destroyed on stack unwinding of unwaryFunction. I probably have some other bug in the actual code (as the message analogous to "Exception caught in..." does not get printed). I'll keep this question for future reference. Thanks for your concern anyway.

Throwing C++ exceptions from a hardware exception handler. Why does -fnon-call-exceptions not behave as expected?

I had this funny idea last night, to trap hardware exceptions and throw a C++ exception instead. Thought that might be useful for things like FPU exceptions, which normally either crash, or silently return NaN and then cause unexpected behaviour. A C++ exception would be far more desirable here.
So I've been hacking all morning and finally got it to work. Well, almost. The compiler still doesn't realize that arithmetic operations can now throw C++ exceptions, and will silently discard the try/catch block around it. It does work when the exception occurs in a function.
void throw_exception()
{
throw std::runtime_error("Division by zero!");
}
__attribute__((noinline))
void try_div0()
{
cout << 1 / 0 << endl;
}
int main()
{
// this class traps a hardware exception (division by zero, in this case) and calls the supplied lambda function.
// uh, no, you probably don't want to see the assembly code behind this...
exception_wrapper div0_exc { 0, [] (exception_frame* frame, bool)
{
if (frame->address.segment != get_cs()) return false; // only handle exceptions that occured in our own code
frame->stack.offset -= 4; // sub <fault esp>, 4;
auto* stack = reinterpret_cast<std::uintptr_t *>(frame->stack.offset); // get <fault esp>
*stack = frame->address.offset; // mov [<fault esp>], <fault address>;
frame->address.offset = reinterpret_cast<std::uintptr_t>(throw_exception); // set return address to throw_exception()
return true; // exception handled!
} };
try
{
// cout << 1 / 0 << endl; // this throws, as expected, but calls std::terminate().
try_div0(); // this exception is caught.
}
catch (std::exception& e)
{
cout << "oops: " << e.what() << endl;
}
}
I realize this is an unusual question... but is there any way I could make this work? Some way to tell gcc that exceptions can occur anywhere?
I'm compiling with djgpp which (I believe) uses DWARF exception handling.
edit: I just found gcc flags -fnon-call-exceptions and -fasynchronous-unwind-tables, which appear to be what I'm looking for. But it still doesn't work...
edit: Now using the previously mentioned gcc flags, it does catch when the exception occurs in between two function calls:
inline void nop() { asm(""); }
// or { cout << flush; } or something. empty function does not work.
int main()
{
/* ... */
try
{
nop();
cout << 1 / 0 << endl;
nop();
}
/* ... */
}
edit: Nested try/catch blocks have the same effect, no exception is caught unless the trapped instruction is preceded by a function call.
inline void nop() { asm(""); }
void try_div(int i)
{
try
{
// this works, catches exception in try_div(0).
nop();
cout << 1 / i << endl;
try_div(i - 1);
// without the first nop(), calls std::terminate()
//cout << 1 / i << endl;
//try_div(i - 1);
// reverse order, also terminates.
//if (i != 0) try_div(i - 1);
//cout << 1 / i << endl;
//nop();
}
catch (std::exception& e)
{
cout << "caught in try_div(" << i << "): " << e.what() << endl;
}
}
int main()
{
/* ... */
try
{
try_div(4);
}
catch (std::exception& e)
{
cout << "caught in main(): " << e.what() << endl;
}
}
edit: I have submitted this as a possible bug in gcc, and reduced my code to a simple test case.
It's been a while, but I finally figured it out... The throwing function needs to be marked as having a signal frame.
[[gnu::no_caller_saved_registers]]
void throw_exception()
{
asm(".cfi_signal_frame");
throw std::runtime_error("Division by zero!");
}

Related to Exception Handling

I am trying to call terminate function. [I think this function gets called when another exception arises during stack unwinding]. The same scenario I have written and trying to verify.
I am able to see a call being made to terminate() function but i am not sure why i am geting the Debug Error.
While trying to execute the following code in Visual studio 2008, I am getting an error message dialog box "Debug Error". The output is also being displayed:
Output:
In try block
In constructor of A
In constructor of B
In destructor of B
In destructor of A
Call to my_terminate
Why this "Debug Error" window appears while executing this code? It is expected behavior? How to remove this error?
class E
{
public:
const char* message;
E(const char* arg) : message(arg) { }
};
void my_terminate()
{
cout << "Call to my_terminate" << endl;
};
class A
{
public:
A() { cout << "In constructor of A" << endl; }
~A()
{
cout << "In destructor of A" << endl;
throw E("Exception thrown in ~A()");
}
};
class B
{
public:
B() { cout << "In constructor of B" << endl; }
~B() { cout << "In destructor of B" << endl; }
};
void main()
{
set_terminate(my_terminate);
try
{
cout << "In try block" << endl;
A a;
B b;
throw("Exception thrown in try block of main()");
}
catch (const char* e)
{
cout << "Exception: " << e << endl;
}
catch (...)
{
cout << "Some exception caught in main()" << endl;
}
cout << "Resume execution of main()" << endl;
getch();
}
You are throwing exception from ~A(). Throwing an exception out of a destructor is dangerous. If another exception is already propagating the application will terminate. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/130123/72178 for more detailed description.
Why this "Debug Error" window appears while executing this code?
You are throwing exception in main from try block. This invokes "Stack unwinding" and destructors of A and B are called. When exception is thrown from ~A() application terminates.
It is expected behavior?
Yes, it is defined by Standard.
How to remove this error?
Don't throw from destructors.

Global exception handling in C++

Can i implement global exception handling in C++?
My requirement is try...catch block is not used in a piece of code then there should be a global exception handler which will handle all uncaught exception.
Can i achieve it, please give your valuable suggestion : )
I always wrap the outer-most function in a try-catch like this:
int main()
{
try {
// start your program/function
Program program; program.Run();
}
catch (std::exception& ex) {
std::cerr << ex.what() << std::endl;
}
catch (...) {
std::cerr << "Caught unknown exception." << std::endl;
}
}
This will catch everything. Good exception handling in C++ is not about writing try-catch all over, but to catch where you know how to handle it (like you seem to want to do). In this case the only thing to do is to write the error message to stderr so the user can act on it.
you can use a combination of set_terminate and current_exception()
i wanted to do the same, here's what i came up with
std::set_terminate([]() -> void {
std::cerr << "terminate called after throwing an instance of ";
try
{
std::rethrow_exception(std::current_exception());
}
catch (const std::exception &ex)
{
std::cerr << typeid(ex).name() << std::endl;
std::cerr << " what(): " << ex.what() << std::endl;
}
catch (...)
{
std::cerr << typeid(std::current_exception()).name() << std::endl;
std::cerr << " ...something, not an exception, dunno what." << std::endl;
}
std::cerr << "errno: " << errno << ": " << std::strerror(errno) << std::endl;
std::abort();
});
in addition to checking what(), it also checks ernno/std::strerror() - in the future i intend to add stack traces as well through exeinfo/backtrace() too
the catch(...) is in case someone threw something other than exception.. for example throw 1; (throw int :| )
In C++ the terminate function is called when an exception is uncaught. You can install your own terminate handler with the set_terminate function. The downside is that your terminate handler may never return; it must terminate your program with some operating system primitive. The default is just to call abort()
When an exception is raised, if is not caught at that point, it goes up the hierarchy until it is actually caught. If there is no code to handle the exception the program terminates.
You can run specific code before termination to do cleanup by using your own handlers of set_unexpected or set_terminate