Re: [boost] [interprocess] initialization issue

From: Ion Gaztañaga (igaztanaga_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-09-26 03:36:21

Glenn Schrader wrote:
> Well, I hacked up a version that used status flags to return the open 
> failure rather than an exception and it works find. Of course if there 
> ever was any out-of-memory condition (etc) then it would just terminate 
> but I view that as just part of the contract you get when you turn 
> exceptions off then use an API that might throw. In practice this level 
> of functionality is usable. On a more philosophical note, I don't think 
> that exceptions are the "right" way to implement this. Exceptions are 
> best used to signal exceptional conditions and not as a way to control 
> normal program flow. An open failure, rather than being exceptional, is 
> the most commonly expected case since only one process will actually not 
> throw.  My $0.02.

That was the case for the original Shmem (Interprocess parent) library 
but in the review Boosters decided that exceptions were the way to go.

The problem with out-of memory is that getting out of memory in the 
shared memory segment is more common than out-of-memory in the heap. And 
crashing the program when the shared memory is full is not a good idea, 
IMHO.

What I could do is to add non-throwing overloads, but I don't know when 
I'll have time to do it. I would want to make the whole library 
compatible with disabled exceptions (including containers and other 
classes).

I know someday I'll do a non-throwing version of Interprocess because I 
not a big fan of exceptions, but I don't know when ;-)

Regards,

Ion