Re: Onwards and upwards

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=D6=F6_Tiib?= <ootiib@hot.ee>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 3 Apr 2015 06:11:47 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<b0626b5f-8d42-4a57-a5eb-95c8e65eb9f7@googlegroups.com>
On Thursday, 2 April 2015 07:51:11 UTC+3, woodb...@gmail.com wrote:

What do you think of this class?


Average class.

class failure : public ::std::exception {
  ::std::string whatStr;

public:
  explicit failure (char const* w) : whatStr(w) {}


Can use alternative syntax 'char const s[]' to indicate that C string
is expected.

  explicit failure (::std::string w) : whatStr(::std::move(w)) {}

  ~failure () throw() {}


Feels pointless to indicate 'noexcept' here since compiler can see it
itself. You can indicate that destructor is default and virtual like:

    virtual ~failure() = default;

However since you do not define neither assignments nor
copy-constructions of 'failure' it feels better to remove the
destructor as well by rule of zero.

  char const* what () const throw()
  { return whatStr.c_str(); }


Can indicate that member function is virtual override (with keywords
'virtual' and 'override').

  failure& operator<< (char const* s)
  {
    whatStr.append(s);
    return *this;
  }

  failure& operator<< (char* s)
  {
    whatStr.append(s);
    return *this;
  }


That looks unneeded overload; its body is identical to previous overload.

  failure& operator<< (::std::string const& s)
  {
    whatStr.append(s);
    return *this;
  }

  template <class T>
  failure& operator<< (T val)
  {
    whatStr.append(::std::to_string(val));
    return *this;
  }


Can use:

    using std::to_string;
    whatStr.append(to_string(val));

That will consider likely 'to_string's from T's namespace in name lookup.

};

I'm thinking about changing it to something like this:

class failure : public ::std::string {

public:
  explicit failure (char const* w) : std::string(w) {}
  explicit failure (::std::string w) : std::string(::std::move(w)) {}

  ~failure () throw() {}

  template <class T>
  failure& operator<< (T val)
  {
    this->append(::std::to_string(val));
    return *this;
  }
};

Some preliminary tests show smaller executable sizes with
this second approach.


Technically it is 'catch (std::string const&)' for user?
 
Performance considerations are always less important than usability
considerations so I usually derive exception types that may be
thrown out of my code from 'std::runtime_error'. Better usability
for caller, microscopic difference in performance.

If you really need such microscopic performance benefits then better
throw enwrapped into 'std::exception' string literals or integers.
IOW do not build long texts at throw site. For example: If catch
site can't do anything with long text that explains in detail what
strange byte sequence did not let a parser to parse the input,
then do not build such thing at throw site and executable size is
immediately smaller too.

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