Re: exception handling anti-patterns in documentation

From: Gavin Lambert (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2022-05-30 02:24:34

On 30/05/2022 13:50, Robert Ramey wrote:
> What I actually do in this case is throw a custom exception at the point 
> of failure which gives me information of where I was and what I was 
> doing when I requested this "too large" memory allocation.  This seems 
> to be a very reasonable scenario to me.

Technically, the "right" thing to do in this case would be to allow the 
original bad_alloc to bubble up, perhaps using Boost.Exception, 
Boost.Leaf, or std::throw_with_nested to decorate it with additional 
context via catch-and-rethrow.

That could potentially be a good use for exceptions (when handled far 
from the point of actual failure).  Although it can still be argued that 
trying to make a too-large memory allocation is usually the result of a 
failure of input sanitisation (e.g. not checking data from input files), 
which is still a kind of coding bug.