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15b6757b 1/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
3b88355f 2// Name: exceptions.h
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3// Purpose: topic overview
4// Author: wxWidgets team
5// RCS-ID: $Id$
6// Licence: wxWindows license
7/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
8
9/*!
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3b88355f 11 @page overview_exceptions C++ exceptions overview
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13 @li @ref overview_exceptions_introduction
14 @li @ref overview_exceptions_strategies
15 @li @ref overview_exceptions_tech
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16
17
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18 <hr>
19
20
21 @section overview_exceptions_introduction Introduction
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23 wxWidgets had been started long before the exceptions were introduced in C++ so
24 it is not very surprising that it is not built around using them as some more
25 modern C++ libraries are. For instance, the library doesn't throw exceptions to
26 signal about the errors. Moreover, up to (and including) the version 2.4 of
27 wxWidgets, even using the exceptions in the user code was dangerous because the
28 library code wasn't exception-safe and so an exception propagating through it
29 could result in memory and/or resource leaks, and also not very convenient.
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31 wxWidgets is exception-friendly.
32 It still doesn't use the exceptions by itself but it should be now safe to use the
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33 exceptions in the user code and the library tries to help you with this. Please
34 note that making the library exception-safe is still work in progress.
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35
36
3b88355f 37 @section overview_exceptions_strategies Strategies for exceptions handling
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39 There are several choice for using the exceptions in wxWidgets programs. First
40 of all, you may not use them at all. As stated above, the library doesn't throw
41 any exceptions by itself and so you don't have to worry about exceptions at all
42 unless your own code throws them. This is, of course, the simplest solution but
43 may be not the best one to deal with all possible errors.
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45 Another strategy is to use exceptions only to signal truly fatal errors. In
46 this case you probably don't expect to recover from them and the default
47 behaviour -- to simply terminate the program -- may be appropriate. If it is
98ba1eee 48 not, you may override wxApp::OnUnhandledException()
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49 in your wxApp-derived class to perform any clean up tasks. Note, however, that
50 any information about the exact exception type is lost when this function is
98ba1eee 51 called, so if you need you should override wxApp::OnRun() and
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52 add a try/catch clause around the call of the base class version. This would
53 allow you to catch any exceptions generated during the execution of the main
54 event loop. To deal with the exceptions which may arise during the program
36c9828f 55 startup and/or shutdown you should insert try/catch clauses in
98ba1eee 56 wxApp::OnInit() and/or wxApp::OnExit() as well.
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58 Finally, you may also want to continue running even when certain exceptions
59 occur. If all of your exceptions may happen only in the event handlers of a
60 single class (or only in the classes derived from it), you may centralize your
98ba1eee 61 exception handling code in wxApp::ProcessEvent
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62 method of this class. If this is impractical, you may also consider overriding
63 the wxApp::HandleEvent() which allows you to handle
64 all the exceptions thrown by any event handler.
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65
66
3b88355f 67 @section overview_exceptions_tech Technicalities
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69 To use any kind of exception support in the library you need to build it
70 with @c wxUSE_EXCEPTIONS set to 1. This should be the case by default but
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71 if it isn't, you should edit the @c include/wx/msw/setup.h file under
72 Windows or run @c configure with @c --enable-exceptions argument
73 under Unix.
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75 On the other hand, if you do not plan to use exceptions, setting this
76 flag to 0 or using @c --disable-exceptions could result in a leaner and
77 slightly faster library.
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79 As for any other library feature, there is a sample (@c except)
80 showing how to use it. Please look at its sources for further information.
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3b88355f 82*/