The Right Approach to Exceptions

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2012-02-21 22:08, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 2/21/12 2:42 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> On 2012-02-21 21:27, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> On 2/21/12 2:26 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>>>> As I said, it seems you want to push up implementation details specific
>>>> to a given subclass to the base class even though it shouldn't be
>>>> pushed
>>>> up.
>>>
>>> I explained that doing so allows for proper formatting of error
>>> messages. So it should pushed up.
>>>
>>> Andrei
>>
>> Well, I don't think that is the right approach. As many others have
>> explained, error messages are only a small part of exception handling.
>
> I agree. Also, one interface function is only a small part of a class
> hierarchy.
>
>> If you do want to have a generic way of getting an error message out of
>> an exception, what's wrong with toString? Or a new method that formats
>> the error messages. No need to push up the instance variables to the
>> base class.
>
> This has been answered in the long thread. In brief, toString loses too
> much information and putting formatting inside exceptions is not the
> right place.
>
>
> Andrei

Now I'm completely lost. According to what I've read this is thread this 
is exactly what you want to do, put the formatting inside the exceptions.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg