Re: [boost] [RFC] sticky_exception

From: Howard Hinnant (hinnant_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-09-13 20:40:06

On Sep 13, 2007, at 5:54 PM, Emil Dotchevski wrote:

> Howard Hinnant wrote:
>> I am requesting comments, both for and against a "sticky exception".
>> A sticky exception is one in which once thrown, is very hard to catch
>> and handle, without an implicit rethrow.  This represents some
>> condition which the thrower believes is sufficiently severe that the
>> application (or thread) should clean up resources, but not be allowed
>> to continue, even with a catch (...) which does not rethrow.
>
> Here are a two arguments against:
>
> 1) The whole point of throwing an exception is that the program _can_
> recover and not just clean up and exit.
>
> 2) If I write catch(...) in a destructor, I would be unpleasently  
> surprised
> if it ends up throwing after all.
>
> What use cases do you have in mind anyway?

Thanks Emil.  I'm conducting a personal sanity check.  Some people  
just do this with a dipstick.  I prefer to consult with my colleagues  
on boost. :-)

I will definitely answer your question but I'd prefer not to for  
another day or two.  I'm hoping to not influence other's answers one  
way or another for now.  I'm exploring a design space of a sensitive  
subject, and saying more than I have risks tainting the unbiased  
responses I'm seeking.  I very much appreciate you posting your  
arguments and hope others will do so as well.

-Howard