Exceptional C++ Style 40 New Engineering Puzzles, Programming Problems, and Solutions

Chapter 12. Exception Safety: Is It Worth It?

Difficulty: 7

Is it worth the effort to write exception-safe code? This should no longer be a seriously disputed and debated point… but sometimes it still is.

Guru Question

1. Recap: Briefly define the Abrahams exception safety guarantees (basic, strong, and nofail).

2. When is it worth it to write code that meets:

   1. the basic guarantee?

   2. the strong guarantee?

   3. the nofail guarantee?

Solution

The Abrahams Guarantees

1. Recap: Briefly define the Abrahams exception safety guarantees (basic, strong, and nofail).

The basic guarantee says that failed operations might alter program state, but no leaks occur and affected objects/modules are still destructible and usable, in a consistent (but not necessarily predictable) state.

The ...