Custom exception

suggest change

You shouldn’t throw raw values as exceptions, instead use one of the standard exception classes or make your own.

Having your own exception class inherited from std::exception is a good way to go about it. Here’s a custom exception class which directly inherits from std::exception:

#include <exception>

class Except: virtual public std::exception {
    
protected:

    int error_number;               ///< Error number
    int error_offset;               ///< Error offset
    std::string error_message;      ///< Error message
    
public:

    /** Constructor (C++ STL string, int, int).
     *  @param msg The error message
     *  @param err_num Error number
     *  @param err_off Error offset
     */
    explicit 
    Except(const std::string& msg, int err_num, int err_off):
        error_number(err_num),
        error_offset(err_off),
        error_message(msg)
        {}

    /** Destructor.
     *  Virtual to allow for subclassing.
     */
    virtual ~Except() throw () {}

    /** Returns a pointer to the (constant) error description.
     *  @return A pointer to a const char*. The underlying memory
     *  is in possession of the Except object. Callers must
     *  not attempt to free the memory.
     */
    virtual const char* what() const throw () {
       return error_message.c_str();
    }
    
    /** Returns error number.
     *  @return #error_number
     */
    virtual int getErrorNumber() const throw() {
        return error_number;
    }
    
    /**Returns error offset.
     * @return #error_offset
     */
    virtual int getErrorOffset() const throw() {
        return error_offset;
    }

};

An example throw catch:

try {
    throw(Except("Couldn't do what you were expecting", -12, -34));
} catch (const Except& e) {
    std::cout<<e.what()
             <<"\nError number: "<<e.getErrorNumber()
             <<"\nError offset: "<<e.getErrorOffset();
}

As you are not only just throwing a dumb error message, also some other values representing what the error exactly was, your error handling becomes much more efficient and meaningful.

There’s an exception class that let’s you handle error messages nicely :std::runtime_error

You can inherit from this class too:

#include <stdexcept>

class Except: virtual public std::runtime_error {
    
protected:

    int error_number;               ///< Error number
    int error_offset;               ///< Error offset
    
public:

    /** Constructor (C++ STL string, int, int).
     *  @param msg The error message
     *  @param err_num Error number
     *  @param err_off Error offset
     */
    explicit 
    Except(const std::string& msg, int err_num, int err_off):
        std::runtime_error(msg)
        {
            error_number = err_num;
            error_offset = err_off;
            
        }

    /** Destructor.
     *  Virtual to allow for subclassing.
     */
    virtual ~Except() throw () {}
    
    /** Returns error number.
     *  @return #error_number
     */
    virtual int getErrorNumber() const throw() {
        return error_number;
    }
    
    /**Returns error offset.
     * @return #error_offset
     */
    virtual int getErrorOffset() const throw() {
        return error_offset;
    }

};

Note that I haven’t overridden the what() function from the base class (std::runtime_error) i.e we will be using the base class’s version of what(). You can override it if you have further agenda.

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