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For more information on exception specifications of destructors, see DCL58-CPP. Destructors and deallocation functions must be declared noexcept.

Noncompliant Code Example

In this noncompliant example, the constructor of global may throw an exception during program startup (the std::string constructor accepting a const char * and a default allocator object is not marked noexcept(true) and thus allows all exceptions). This exception is not caught by the function-try-block on main(), resulting in a call to std::terminate() and abnormal program termination.

#include <string>
 
static const std::string global("...");

int main()
try {
  // ...
} catch(...) {
  // IMPORTANT: will not catch exceptions thrown
  // from the constructor of global.
}

Compliant Solution

Compliant code must prevent exceptions from escaping during program startup and termination. This compliant solution avoids defining a std::string at global namespace scope, and instead uses a static const char *:

static const char *global = "...";

int main() {
  // ...
}

Risk Assessment

Throwing an exception which cannot be caught results in abnormal program termination, and can lead to denial-of-service attacks.

Automated Detection

Related Vulnerabilities

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

Related Guidelines

Bibliography