right usage of std::uncaught_exception in a destructor

Question

There are some articles concluding "never throw an exception from a destructor", and "std::uncaught_exception() is not useful", for example:

• http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/047.htm (written by Herb Sutter)

But it seems that I am not getting the point. So I wrote a small testing example (see below).

Since everything is fine with the testing example I would very appreciate some comments regarding what might be wrong with it ?

testing results:

./main

    Foo::~Foo(): caught exception - but have pending exception - ignoring
    int main(int, char**): caught exception: from int Foo::bar(int)

./main 1

    Foo::~Foo(): caught exception -  but *no* exception is pending - rethrowing
    int main(int, char**): caught exception: from Foo::~Foo()

example:

// file main.cpp
// build with e.g. "make main"
// tested successfully on Ubuntu-Karmic with g++ v4.4.1
#include <iostream>

class Foo {
  public:

  int bar(int i) {
    if (0 == i)
      throw(std::string("from ") + __PRETTY_FUNCTION__);
    else
      return i+1;
  }

  ~Foo() {
    bool exc_pending=std::uncaught_exception();
    try {
      bar(0);
    } catch (const std::string &e) {
      // ensure that no new exception has been created in the meantime
      if (std::uncaught_exception()) exc_pending = true;

      if (exc_pending) {
        std::cerr << __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ 
                  << ": caught exception - but have pending exception - ignoring"
                  << std::endl;
      } else {
        std::cerr << __PRETTY_FUNCTION__
                  << ": caught exception -  but *no* exception is pending - rethrowing"
                  << std::endl;
        throw(std::string("from ") + __PRETTY_FUNCTION__);
      }
    }
  }

};

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  try {
    Foo f;
    // will throw an exception in Foo::bar() if no arguments given. Otherwise
    // an exception from Foo::~Foo() is thrown.
    f.bar(argc-1);
  } catch (const std::string &e) {
    std::cerr << __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ << ": caught exception: " << e << std::endl;
  }
  return 0;
}

ADDED: In other words: despite of the warnings in some articles it works as expected - so what might be wrong with it?

Answer 1

Herb Sutter is referring to a different issue. He's talking about:

try
{
}
catch (...)
{
    try
    {
        // here, std::uncaught_exception() will return true
        // but it is still safe to throw an exception because
        // we have opened a new try block
    }
    catch (...)
    {
    }
}

So the problem is that if std::uncaught_exception() returns true you don't know for sure whether you can safely throw an exception or not. You end up having to avoid throwing an exception when std::uncaught_exception() returns true just to be safe.

Answer 2

There's nothing technically wrong with your code. Its perfectly safe in that you will never accidentally terminate because you threw an exception when it was not safe to. The issue is that it also is not useful, in that it will occasionally also not throw an exception when it is safe to. Your destructor's documentation basically has to say "this might or might not throw an exception." If it occasionally won't throw an exception, you might as well never throw an exception. That way, you're at least consistent.