CS 204 Advance Programming Exception Handling in C

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CS 204 Advance Programming Exception Handling in
C

• Berrin Yanikoglu
• Yücel Saygin
• Some slides thanks to Hannu Laine

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Exceptions

• Good program is stable and fault tolerant.
• In a good program, exceptional (error)
  situations must be handled.
• Exceptions are unusual events (erroneous or not)
• They are detectable by either hardware or
  software
• They may require special processing
• Exception handler is part of the code that
  processes an exception
• Some examples for exceptions
• EOF is reached while trying to read from a file
• Division by 0 is attempted (result is
  meaningless)
• Array subscript is out of range
• Bad input

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Why exceptions?

• In traditional code, the following may be done in
  error-prone situations
• error values are returned from a function
• new or malloc() returns null for out of memory
• fopen() returns null when the file can not be
  opened
• a global error condition flag is set
• The programmer is then responsible for checking
  these returned values

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Why exceptions?

• Example.
• if ((p malloc(sizeof(float)) NULL)
• //handle error
• if ( (f fopen(file.txt, r) ) NULL)
• //handle error
• This kind of error detection
• makes the program logic unclear.
• cannot be used to handle errors in constructors
  (because they dont return a value).
• user may not check the returned error
• errors must be handled immediately. The
  application should decide how to act in error
  situations.
• Because of these drawbacks a new method to handle
  error situations (exceptions) is developed in C.

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More advantages
Exception handling unwinds the stack. It means
that all objects that are allocated from the
stack in a failed block are released and their
destructors are called. Exception handling is
fully object oriented method (it is possible to
use polymorphic exception handling). It is
possible to separate the code needed fornormal
operation and for exception situations. It is
possible to decide at what level the exception is
handled.
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Exception Handling in C
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Basics of Exception Handling
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Exception Handling Sample Code
Simple program to convert entered height (in cm)
into inches cout ltlt Enter height
cin gtgt height try if
(height gt 300) throw height
exceeds maximum if (height lt 0)
throw height below minimum cout
ltlt Inch equivalent ltlt ToInches(height)
catch(const char msg)
cout lt msg ltlt endl
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Three Keywords

• try identifies a code block where exception can
  occur
• throw causes an exception to be raised (thrown)
• catch identifies a code block where the
  exception will be handled (caught)
• try
• exception
• throw catch

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The fundamentals of exception handling
The normal code is put in a so called try
block. It means that we try to execute code
in the try block. If the system succeeds to run
the code, everything is fine. If or when
something goes wrong when code of try block is
executed, this code throws an exception object
and stops executing the code of try block
further. Another part of the code (the error
handling part) can catch the exception (object)
and make necessary actions needed in that error
situation. The exception object can contain
information about the exception, so that the
error handling part of the program can examine
the reason and make appropriate actions.
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How it works

• When an exception is thrown, the remaining code
  in the try block is skipped, just as in the case
  of the return statement in a function, and every
  object created within the try block is destroyed
• The throw object is caught by the catch block
  where execution continues
• The execution continues with the next statement
  after the catch block

• while (ch y ch Y)
• cout ltlt Enter height
• cin gtgt height
• try
• if (height gt 300)
• throw height exceeds maximum
• if (height lt 0)
• throw height below minimum
• cout ltlt Inch equivalent ltlt
• ToInches(height)
• catch(const char msg)
• cout lt msg ltlt endl
• .....

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How it works

• When no exception is raised in the try block,
  then catch block is skipped.
• You can throw exceptions anywhere in the try
  block
• The operand following the throw keyword can be
  any expression and the type of the result of the
  expression determines the type of the exception
  thrown (can be any type - basic type or user
  defined class type)
• The input type to the catch statement (the type
  of the exception object) is defined as in
  function declaration

• while (ch y ch Y)
• cout ltlt Enter height
• cin gtgt height
• try
• if (height gt 300)
• throw height exceeds maximum
• if (height lt 0)
• throw height below minimum
• cout ltlt Inch equivalent ltlt
• ToInches(height)
• catch(const char msg)
• cout lt msg ltlt endl

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Catching Exceptions

• You must supply at least one catch block for a
  try block
• try
• if (Height gt 100)
• throw height exceeds maximum
• if (Height lt 9)
• throw height below minimum
• // do what you want to do with the
  height
• cout ltlt do you want to continue?
• cin gtgt ch
• NOT ALLOWED!

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Catching Exceptions

• Catch blocks must immediately follow the try
  block without any program code between them.
• try
• if (Height gt 100)
• throw height exceeds maximum
• if (Height lt 9)
• throw height below minimum
• // do what you want to do with the
  height
• cout ltlt do you want to continue?
• cin gtgt ch
• cout ltlt ..... // not allowed
• catch(const char msg)
• cout lt msg ltlt endl

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Catching Exceptions

• Catch blocks will catch exceptions of the correct
  type that occur in the code in the immediately
  preceding try block, including the ones thrown by
  functions called within the try block.
• try
• if (Height gt 100)
• throw height exceeds maximum
• if (Height lt 9)
• throw height below minimum
• f1(height)
• catch(const char msg)
• cout lt msg ltlt endl

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Nested tries

• In case of nested try blocks
• if an exception is thrown from within an inner
  try block which is not followed by a catch block
  with the right type, the catch handlers for the
  outer try block will be searched.
• If a catch block cannot handle the particular
  exception it has caught, it can rethrow the
  exception.

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try while (ch y ch Y)
cout ltlt Enter Height cin gtgt
Height try if
(Height gt 300) throw height
exceeds maximum if (Height lt 1)
throw Height // do what you
want to do with the height cout ltlt
do you want to continue? cin gtgt
ch catch(const char
msg) cout lt msg ltlt endl
catch(ind BadHeight)
cout ltlt BadHeight ltlt is below minimumltlt
endl

• The exception of type const char is caught by
  the catch block in the inner try block

• The exception of type int has no catch handler
  for exceptions of that type, so the the catch
  handler in the outer try block is executed

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Catching exceptions

• If you want to catch any exception that is thrown
  in a try block, you specify this as
• catch ()
• // code to handle any exception
• This catch block must appear last if you have
  other catch blocks defined for the try block.
• Note that in this catch block, you do not know
  what type of exception has occured and cannot
  reference an object

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Catching Exceptions
main() try throw "error"
catch (int i)
If an exception is not caught by any catch
statement because there is no catch statement
with a matching type, the special function
terminate will be called. This function is
generally defined so that it terminates the
current process immediately showing an "Abnormal
termination" error message.
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Exception Objects and Good Use of Exceptions
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Exception Class Hierarchies
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Inheritance for Exception Classes

• We can use inheritance for abstraction!
• class MathErr //Base class for a hierarchy of
  math exceptions
• class Overflow public MathErr
• class Underflow public MathErr
• class ZeroDivide public MathErr
•  
• Now we can catch any of these exceptions
• try // ...
• catch (Overflow) / ... /
• catch (Underflow) / ... /
• catch (MathErr) / ... /
• try can catch various exceptions, distinguishing
  them by their class names--better than switch

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Exception Inheritance

Example try ... ... catch
(SpecialExceptionType1 e) ... catch
(SpecialExceptionType2 e) ... catch
(GeneralExceptionType e) ... catch(...)
...
SpecialExceptionType1 and SpecialExceptionType2
are inherited from GeneralExceptionType. SpecialE
xceptionType1 and SpecialExceptionType2 have
their own handling block (catch block). All
other exception inherited from GeneralExceptionTyp
e are handled in common catch block. All other
exceptions (that dont have GeneralExceptionType
as a base) are handled in the last catch block.
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Exception Classes
class CExceptionpublic___char
message___CException( char m ) message m
___Report() try ___Initialize()___Run()
___Shutdown() catch( CException e )
___e.Report()
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Extra Slides

• Explaining exception handling more compactly

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Stack Unwinding
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Stack unwinding
If exception is thrown in a try block (in a
function that is called from a try block or in a
function that is called from a function that is
called from a try block and so on), all local
objects allocated from the stack after the try
block was entered are released and their
destructors are called. This process is called
stack unwinding. This process guaranties that
when we try to recover from an error, there are
no inconsistent data in the stack and try block
can be started again if desired.
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Stack unwinding
Example 1. void main() try A
a f1() void f1() B
b f2() void f2() C c
throw Exception e
If error occurs in the function f2, the
destructors for objects a, b and c are called and
those objects are deleted from the stack.
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Exception Classes in C
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• C exception handling allows a clean separation
  between error detection and error handling.
• A library developer may be able to detect when an
  error occurs, such as an argument out of range,
  but the developer doesn't know what to do about
  it.
• You, the user, can't always detect an exceptional
  condition, but you know how your application
  needs to handle it.
• Hence, exceptions constitute a protocol for
  runtime error communication between components of
  an application.

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Standard exception classes
C standard defines the following class
hierarchy for exceptions. It is meant to serve
as a starting point so that programmers can
inherit and develop their own exceptions. The
base class for this class hierarchy is exception.
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C Exception Classes
Some functions of the standard C language
library send exceptions that can be captured if
we include them within a try block. These
exceptions are sent with a class derived from
stdexception as type. This class
(stdexception) is defined in the C standard
header file ltexceptiongt and serves as base for
the standard hierarchy of exceptions
include ltiostreamgt include ltexceptiongt using
namespace std main() try char c
new char10 catch (stdexception e)
cout ltlt "Exception " ltlt e.what()
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Standard exception classes
Exception class hierarchy exception
bad_alloc //class bad_alloc public
exception bad_cast bad_typeid logic_er
ror domain_error invalid_argument length_
error out_of_range runtime_error range_err
or overflow_error underflow_error ios_base
failure bad_exception

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Standard exception classes
Exception class hierarchy exception
bad_alloc bad_cast bad_typeid lo
gic_error domain_error invalid_argument l
ength_error out_of_range runtime_error ran
ge_error overflow_error underflow_error io
s_basefailure bad_exception
A logic error indicates an inconsistency in the
internal logic of a program, or a violation of
pre-conditions on the part of client software.
For example, the substr member function of the
standard string class throws an out_of_range
exception if you ask for a substring beginning
past the end of the string. A bad_alloc
exception occurs when heap memory is exhausted.
C will generate a bad_cast exception when a
dynamic_cast to a reference type fails. If you
rethrow an exception from within an unexpected
handler, it gets converted into a bad_exception.
If you attempt to apply the typeid operator to a
null expression, you get a bad_typeid exception.

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Memory allocation errors

• Some build-in operations (global or class
  operations) throw an exception when they dont
  succeed to complete the asked operation or they
  can be asked to do so.
• There are three options how memory allocation
  errors can be handled
• Option 1. Conventional way new returns 0 when
  allocation fails
• Option 2. Programmer can write his/her own
  new_handler
• Option 3. New throws an exception (bad_alloc) if
  allocation fails.

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Input /output errors

• It is possible to make input stream to throw an
  exception when an error flag is set.
• This is done with the member function
  exceptions.
• The parameter is used to indicate what bits
  should cause the exception.

For example, the call cin.exceptions(iosfail
iosbad) makes the cin object to throw the
exception iosfailure, if failbit or bad bits
are set in the following input operations. The
exception type is ios_basefailure. If
exception has occurred, we can test the error
flags to find out what error caused the
exception.
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Example for cin.exceptions

• // Read in two floating point numbers and display
  the sum.
• include ltiostreamgt // stdcout,
  stdcin
• include ltostreamgt // ltlt, stdendl
• include ltistreamgt // gtgt
• int main()
• double a // Number value entered by
  the user.
• double b // Number value entered by
  the user.
• stdcin.exceptions( stdios_baseiostate(
  -1 ) )
• //We want to use exception handling
• stdcout ltlt "Number A, please? "
• stdcin gtgt a
• stdcout ltlt "Number B, please? "
• stdcin gtgt b

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Out of range errors
If we use vector or strings we can random access
the individual elements in the vector or
characters in the string. If we use indexing
operator operator, the program crashes if index
is out of range. If we use a new member
function (at(i)) for indexing instead or override
the operator, we can throw an out_of_range
exception if index is out of range.
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Exceptions in Classes
class Vector //detects out of range errors as
exceptions int p int sz public
class Range //an exception class, defined
within class Vector int operator
(int i) if (0lti i lt sz)
return pi //within range, OK
throw Range() //exception--throw a Range
object  
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Exceptions in Classes more useful/complete
version
class Vector //detects out of range errors as
exceptions public Vector(int n)
size(n) p new intsize class Range
//an exception class, defined within class
Vector int operator (int i) try
if (0lti i lt size)
return pi //within range, OK
else throw Range()
//exception--throw a Range object
catch (Range r) cout ltlt "Out of range
error" private int p int
size  
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Stack Class

• include "stackExcp.h"
• void iStackpop( int top_value )
• if ( empty() )
• throw popOnEmpty()
• top_value _stack --_top
• cout ltlt "iStackpop() " ltlt top_value ltlt
  endl
• void iStackpush( int value )
• cout ltlt "iStackpush( " ltlt value ltlt " )\n"
• if ( full() )
• throw pushOnFull()
• _stack _top value

• // stackExcp.h
• include ltvectorgt
• class iStack
• public
• class popOnEmpty
• .
• class pushOnFull
• .
• iStack( int capacity )
• _stack( capacity ), _top( 0 )
• bool pop( int top_value )
• bool push( int value )
• bool full()

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Sample Codes
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Sample Codes
main() try throw "error"
catch (int i) cout ltlt "caught int
exception"ltlt endl catch (const char
c) cout ltlt "caught"ltlt endl
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Sample Codes
try throw 1 catch(...) cout ltlt
"Caught exception!" ltlt endl
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Beauty of exception handling in C

• Instead of terminating the program, you can write
  more robust and fault-tolerant code
• Instead of returning a value representing error
  (e.g., 0 or NULL), we explicitly separate error
  handling code form "ordinary" code
• We can write more understandable code

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Unexpected Case Handling Methods Summary

• Programmers if statements
• Main approach to dealing with unexpected (also
  very much expected) situations in basic/personal
  programs.
• E.g. File unopened, user entered wrong data,...
• Assert()
• Catches situations that SHOULD NOT happen
• E.g. Other programmers in the group told you how
  their functions work. You assert this, just to
  make sure (so they dont propagate and you wont be
  able to find where the bugs are)
• Try/Catch
• anything not covered by the above
• Or when there are too many possible problems
  making the code long/ugly, gathers all the
  handling code in one part
• E.g. Disk drive etc. not working

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Good Resources

• http//www.freshsources.com/Except1/ALLISON.HTM