Professional C++, 6th Edition

14Handling Errors

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• How to handle errors in C++, including pros and cons of exceptions
• The syntax of exceptions
• Exception class hierarchies and handling exceptions polymorphically
• How to rethrow caught exceptions
• Stack unwinding and cleanup
• How to embed, inside a custom exception, the exact source code location where an exception occurred
• How to embed the entire stack trace, also known as call stack, in a custom exception
• Common error-handling situations

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Please note that all the code examples for this chapter are available as part of this chapter's code download on the book's website at www.wiley.com/go/proc++6e on the Download Code tab.

Inevitably, your C++ programs will encounter errors during execution. The program might be unable to open a file, the network connection might go down, or the user might enter an incorrect value, to name a few possibilities. The C++ language provides a feature called exceptions to handle these exceptional but not unexpected situations.

Most code examples in this book so far have generally ignored error conditions for brevity. This chapter rectifies that simplification by teaching you how to incorporate error handling into your programs from their beginnings. It focuses on C++ exceptions, including the details of their syntax, and describes how to employ them effectively to create well-designed error-handling programs.

The chapter also discusses how you can write your ...