Question

Is there a reference about C++ Standard Library Exceptions? I just want to know that which functions may throw an exception or not.

Answer 1

Actually, most of the standard library function don’t throw exceptions themselves. They just pass on exception thrown by user code invoked by them. For example, if you push_back() an element to a vector, this can throw (due to memory allocation errors and) if the object’s copy constructor throws.

A few notable exceptions (no pun intended) where library functions throw are:

• Some methods will throw out_of_range if the index provided is invalid:
  • std::vector<>::at()
  • std::basic_string<>::at()
  • std::bitset<>::set(), reset() and flip().
• Some methods will throw std::overflow_error on integer overflow:
  • std::bitset<>::to_ulong() and (C++0x) to_ullong().
• std::allocator<T> will pass on std::bad_alloc thrown by new which it invokes.
• Streams can be setup so that std::ios_base::failure are thrown when a state bit is set.
• Large array allocations can throw std::bad_array_new_length
• dynamic_cast on a reference can throw a std::bad_cast (technically not part of the standard library)
• Throwing an invalid exception from a function with an exception specification will throw a std::bad_exception
• Calling a std::function::operator(...) if it has no value will throw std::bad_function_call.
• Using typeinfo of a null pointer may throw a std::bad_typeid.
• Accessing a weak_ptr after the pointee has been released will throw a std::bad_weak_ptr.
• Incorrect usage of std::promise/std::future may throw a std::future_error.
• (c++11) The string conversion functions std::stoi, std::stol, std::stoll, std::stoul, std::stoull, std::stof, std::stod, and std::stold can throw both std::invalid_argument and std::out_of_range.
• (c++11) In the regex family, constructors and assign methods can throw std::regex_error.

(I’m making this a CW answer, so if anyone can think of more such, please feel free to append them here.)

Also, for the 3rd edition of The C++ Programming Language, Bjarne Stroustrup has a downloadable appendix about exception safety, which might be relevant.