std::overflow_error

Header: <stdexcept>

Defines a type of object to be thrown as exception. It can be used to report arithmetic overflow errors (that is, situations where a result of a computation is too large for the destination type).

# Declarations

class overflow_error;

# Parameters

what_arg: explanatory string
other: another exception object to copy

# Return value

*this

# Notes

Because copying std::overflow_error is not permitted to throw exceptions, this message is typically stored internally as a separately-allocated reference-counted string. This is also why there is no constructor taking std::string&&: it would have to copy the content anyway.

Before the resolution of LWG issue 254, the non-copy constructor can only accept std::string. It makes dynamic allocation mandatory in order to construct a std::string object.

After the resolution of LWG issue 471, a derived standard exception class must have a publicly accessible copy constructor. It can be implicitly defined as long as the explanatory strings obtained by what() are the same for the original object and the copied object.

# Example

#include <iostream>
#include <limits>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <utility>
 
template<typename T, int N>
    requires (N > 0) /*...*/
class Stack
{
    int top_{-1};
    T data_[N];
 
public:
    [[nodiscard]] bool empty() const { return top_ == -1; }
 
    void push(T x)
    {
        if (top_ == N - 1)
            throw std::overflow_error("Stack overflow!");
        data_[++top_] = std::move(x);
    }
 
    void pop()
    {
        if (empty())
            throw std::underflow_error("Stack underflow!");
        --top_;
    }
 
    T const& top() const
    {
        if (empty())
            throw std::overflow_error("Stack is empty!");
        return data_[top_];
    }
};
 
int main()
{
    Stack<int, 4> st;
 
    try
    {
        [[maybe_unused]] auto x = st.top();
    }
    catch (std::overflow_error const& ex)
    {
        std::cout << "1) Exception: " << ex.what() << '\n';
    }
 
    st.push(1337);
    while (!st.empty())
    	st.pop();
 
    try
    {
        st.pop();
    }
    catch (std::underflow_error const& ex)
    {
        std::cout << "2) Exception: " << ex.what() << '\n';
    }
 
    try
    {
        for (int i{}; i != 13; ++i)
            st.push(i);
    }
    catch (std::overflow_error const& ex)
    {
        std::cout << "3) Exception: " << ex.what() << '\n';
    }
}

# Defect reports

DR	Applied to	Behavior as published	Correct behavior
LWG 254	C++98	the constructor accepting const char* was missing	added
LWG 471	C++98	the explanatory strings of std::overflow_error’scopies were implementation-defined	they are the same as that of theoriginal std::overflow_error object