CppCon 2019: Ben Saks “Back to Basics: Exception Handling and Exception Safety”

— Discussion & Comments: — Presentation Slides, PDFs, Source Code and other presenter materials are available at: — Exception handling (EH) is a powerful tool for dealing with errors. Using EH effectively can produce code that is simpler, more readable, and more robust than you can get with alternative mechanisms. In this session, we will explain the purpose of EH by contrasting it with the most common alternative, function return codes. We will show you the preferred techniques for throwing and catching exceptions, including which types of objects to throw, when to throw them, and how to catch them. We will describe the different levels of exception safety guarantees and demonstrate techniques like RAII that will help you write functions that provide those guarantees. We will illustrate how to write exception-neutral code that allows you to use EH without creating additional failure points. — Ben Saks Chief Engineer, Saks &