terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::string'

Question

I have this binary thats crashing by throwing an exception of type std:string.

Stack trace from a stripped binary:

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::string'
*** Aborted at 1309483487 (unix time) try "date -d @1309483487" if you are using GNU date ***
PC: @       0x3fb0c30155 (unknown)
*** SIGABRT (@0xd54) received by PID 3412 (TID 0x40d03940) from PID 3412; stack trace: ***
    @       0x3fb180de70 (unknown)
    @       0x3fb0c30155 (unknown)
    @       0x3fb0c31bf0 (unknown)
    @     0x2aaaaab80cc4 (unknown)
    @     0x2aaaaab7ee36 (unknown)
    @     0x2aaaaab7ee63 (unknown)
    @     0x2aaaaab7ef4a (unknown)
    @           0x4c2622 XYZ::connect()
    @           0x4c3e0f XYZ::refresh()
    @       0x3fb18062f7 (unknown)
    @       0x3fb0cd1e3d (unknown)

Now the thing is, the refresh() function does try to catch std::string. It looks like:-

bool XYZ::refresh() {
  try {
    connect();
  } catch (string& s) {
    return false;
  }
  return true;
}

Any idea why is it not getting caught? Or Am I reading the stack trace wrong?

Solution

Perhaps some or all modules were compiled with -fno-exceptions? See http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/using_exceptions.html for details on how that changes exception behavior.

For example, the following short program displays "terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::string'" if:

• the module that contains foo() was compiled with -fno-exceptions, and

• foo() calls something that throws an exception of type std::string (all other modules were compiled with -fexceptions)

  #include <string>
  #include <iostream>
  
  using namespace std;
  
  int foo();
  
  int main()
  {
      try {
          foo();
      }
      catch (string& s) {
          std::cout << "caught it: \"" << s << "\"" << endl;
      }
  
      return 0;
  }
  

Note that if I simply recompile foo.cpp with -fexceptions (g++'s default) and relink, the program displays:

caught it: "the string exception"

as expected.

---

Or perhaps some intermediate function had a throw specification that didn't list std::string?

For example, this program:

#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int Hunc() throw(int); // can only throw int (?)

int main()
{
    try {
        Hunc();
    }
    catch (string& s) {
        std::cout << "caught it: \"" << s << "\"" << endl;
    }

    return 0;
}


int Hunc() throw(int)
{
    throw string("the string exception");
}

Also displays "terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::string'". Both examples were tested on a Windows box with MinGW 4.5.1.