version 2.3

exceptions4c Reference Documentation

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exceptions4c

Version:
2.3
Author:
Copyright (c) 2010 Guillermo Calvo
See also:
http://code.google.com/p/exceptions4c/

An exception handling framework for C

Bring the power of exceptions to your C applications with this tiny, portable exception handling framework!

This library provides you a simple set of keywords (macros, actually) which map the semantics of exception handling you're probably already used to:

You can write try/catch/finally blocks just as if you were coding in Java:

 int foo;
 void * buffer = malloc(1024);
  
 try{
     foo = bar(buffer);
 }catch(BadUserInputException){
     foo = 123;
 }finally{
     free(buffer);
 }
 

This way you will never have to deal again with boring error codes, or check return values every time you call a function.

Exception Hierarchies

The possible exceptions in a program are organized in a pseudo-hierarchy of exceptions. RuntimeException is the root of the exceptions pseudo-hierarchy. Any exception can be caught by a catch(RuntimeException) block.

When an exception is thrown, control is transferred to the nearest dynamically-enclosing catch code block that handles the exception. Whether a particular catch block handles an exception is found out by comparing the type (and supertypes) of the actual thrown exception against the specified exception type in the catch clause.

A catch block is given an exception type as a parameter. This parameter determines the set of exceptions that can be handled by the code block. A block handles an actual exception that was thrown if the name of the parameter is either:

If you write a catch block that handles an exception with no defined subtype, it will only handle that very specific exception. By grouping exceptions in hierarchies, you can design generic catch blocks that deal with several exceptions.

Dispose Pattern

There are other keywords related to resource handling:

They allow you to express the Dispose Pattern in your code:

 FOO foo;
 with(foo, dispose_FOO) foo = acquire_FOO(bar, foobar); use do_something(foo);
  
 BAR bar;
 using(BAR, bar, ("BAR", 123) ){
     do_something_else(bar);
 }
  
 FILE * file;
 e4c_using_file(file, "log.txt", "a"){
     fputs("hello, world!\n", file);
 }
 

This is a clean and terse way to handle all kinds of resources with implicit acquisition and automatic disposal.

Signal Handling

In addition, signals (such as SIGHUP, SIGFPE and SIGSEGV) can be handled in an exceptional way. Forget about scary segmentation faults, all you need is to catch BadPointerException:

 int * pointer = NULL;
  
 try{
     int oops = *pointer;
 }catch(BadPointerException){
     printf("No problem ;-)");
 }
 

Multithreading

If you are using threads in your program, you must switch on the thread-safe version of the library by defining E4C_THREADSAFE at compiler level.

The usage of the framework does not vary between single and multithreaded programs. The same semantics apply. The only caveat is that the behaviour of signal handling is undefined in a multithreaded program so use this feature with caution.

Integration

Whether you are developing a standalone application, or an external library that provides services to independent programs, you can integrate exceptions4c in your code very easily.

The system provides a mechanism for implicit initialization and finalization of the exception framework, so that it is safe to use try, catch, throw, etc. from any external function, even if its caller is not exception-aware whatsoever.

Portability

This library should compile in any ANSI C compiler. It uses nothing but standard C functions. In order to use exceptions4c you have to drop the two files (e4c.h and e4c.c) in your project and remember to include the header file from your code.

In case your application uses threads, exceptions4c relies on pthreads, the POSIX application programming interface for writing multithreaded applications. This API is available for most operating systems and platforms.

License

This is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this software. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.


exceptions4c version 2.3
Copyright 2010 Guillermo Calvo.

Generated on Wed Nov 24 2010 by doxygen 1.7.2