C++ Primer Plus

When Exceptions Go Astray

After an exception is thrown, it has two opportunities to cause problems. First, if it is thrown in a function that has an exception specification, it has to match one of the types in the specification list. (Remember that in an inheritance hierarchy, a class type matches objects of that type and of types descended from it.) If the exception doesn’t match the specification, the unmatched exception is branded an unexpected exception, and, by default, it causes the program to abort. (Although C++11 deprecates exception specifications, they still remain in the language and in some existing code.) If the exception passes this first hurdle (or avoids it because the function lacks an exception specification), it then has to ...