C++ Coding Standards: 101 Rules, Guidelines, and Best Practices

72. Prefer to use exceptions to report errors

Summary

When harmed, take exception: Prefer using exceptions over error codes to report errors. Use status codes (e.g., return codes, errno) for errors when exceptions cannot be used (see Item 62), and for conditions that are not errors. Use other methods, such as graceful or ungraceful termination, when recovery is impossible or not required.

Discussion

It’s no coincidence that most modern languages created in the past 20 years use exceptions as their primary error reporting mechanism. Almost by definition, exceptions are for reporting exceptions to normal processing—also known as “errors,” defined in Item 70 as violations of preconditions, postconditions, and invariants. Like all error reporting, ...