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It is important that resources are reclaimed Reclaiming resources when exceptions are thrown is important. Throwing an An exception being thrown may result in cleanup code being bypassed . As a result, it is the responsibility of the exception handler to properly clean up. This may be problematic if the exception is to be caught in a different function or module. Instead, it is preferable if resources are reclaimed automatically when objects go out of scope.

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or an object being left in a partially initialized state. Such a partially initialized object would violate basic exception safety, as described in ERR56-CPP. Guarantee exception safety. It is preferable that resources be reclaimed automatically, using the RAII design pattern [Stroustrup 2001], when objects go out of scope. This technique avoids the need to write complex cleanup code when allocating resources.

However, constructors do not offer the same protection. Because a constructor is involved in allocating resources, it does not automatically free any resources it allocates if it terminates prematurely. The C++ Standard, [except.ctor], paragraph 2 [ISO/IEC 14882-2014], states the following:

An object of any storage duration whose initialization or destruction is terminated by an exception will have destructors executed for all of its fully constructed subobjects (excluding the variant members of a union-like class), that is, for subobjects for which the principal constructor (12.6.2) has completed execution and the destructor has not yet begun execution. Similarly, if the non-delegating constructor for an object has completed execution and a delegating constructor for that object exits with an exception, the object’s destructor will be invoked. If the object was allocated in a new-expression, the matching deallocation function (3.7.4.2, 5.3.4, 12.5), if any, is called to free the storage occupied by the object.

It is generally recommended that constructors that cannot complete their job should throw exceptions rather than exit normally and leave their object in an incomplete state [Cline 2009].

Resources must not be leaked as a result of throwing an exception, including during the construction of an object.

This rule is a subset of MEM51-CPP. Properly deallocate dynamically allocated resources, as all failures to deallocate resources violate that rule.

Noncompliant Code Example

In this noncompliant code example, pst is not properly released when process_item throws an exception, causing a resource leak.

#include <new>
 
struct SomeType {
  SomeType() noexcept; // Performs nontrivial initialization.
  ~SomeType(); // Performs nontrivial finalization.
  void process_item() noexcept(false);
};
 
void f(
while (moreToDo) {
   SomeType *pst = getNextItem new (std::nothrow) SomeType();
  if try(!pst) {
    // Handle pst->processItem();
   }
   catch (...error
    return;
  }
 
  try {
    pst->process_item();
  } catch (...) {
    // Process error, but do not recover from it; rethrow.
    throw;
  }
  delete pst;
}

Compliant Solution (delete)

In this compliant solution, the exception handler frees pst by calling delete.

#include <new>

struct SomeType {
  SomeType() noexcept; // Performs nontrivial initialization.
  ~SomeType(); // Performs nontrivial finalization.

  void process_item() noexcept(false);
};

void f() {
  SomeType *pst = new (std::nothrow) SomeType();
  if (!pst) {
    // deal with exceptionHandle error
    return;
  }
  try {
   throw;
   } pst->process_item();
  } catch (...) {
    // Process error, but do not recover from it; rethrow.
    delete pst;
    throw;
  }

The code of the Non-Compliant Code Example does not recover the resources associated with the object pointed to by pst in the event that processItem throws an exception, thereby potentially causing a resource leak.

Compliant Solution

  delete pst;
}

While this compliant solution properly releases its resources using catch clauses, this approach can have some disadvantages:

• Each distinct cleanup requires its own try and catch blocks.
• The cleanup operation must not throw any exceptions.

Compliant Solution (RAII Design Pattern)

A better approach is to employ RAII. This pattern forces every object to clean up after itself in the face of abnormal behavior, preventing the programmer from having to do so. Another benefit of this approach is that it does not require statements to handle resource allocation errors, in conformance with MEM52-CPP. Detect and handle memory allocation errors.

struct SomeType {
  SomeType() noexcept; // Performs nontrivial initialization.
  ~SomeType(); // Performs nontrivial finalization.

  void process_item() noexcept(false);
};

void f() {
  SomeType st;
  try {
    st.process_item();
  } catch (...) {
    // Process error, but do not recover from it; rethrow.
    throw;
  } // After re-throwing the exception, the destructor is run for st.
} // If f() exits without throwing an exception, the destructor is run for st.

Noncompliant Code Example

In this noncompliant code example, the C::C() constructor might fail to allocate memory for a, might fail to allocate memory for b, or might throw an exception in the init() method. If init() throws an exception, neither a nor b will be released. Likewise, if the allocation for b fails, a will not be released.

struct A {/* ... */};
struct B {/* ... */};

class C {
  A *a;
  B *b;
protected:
  void init() noexcept(false);
public:
  C() : a(new A()), b(new B()) {
    init();
  }
};

Compliant Solution (try/catch)

This compliant solution mitigates the potential failures by releasing a and b if an exception is thrown during their allocation or during init().

struct A {/* ... */};
struct B {/* ... */};
 
class C {
  A *a;
  B *b;
protected:
  void init() noexcept(false);
public:
  C() : a(nullptr), b(nullptr) {
    try {
      a = new A();
      b = new B();
      init();
    } 

while (moreToDo) {
   SomeType *pst = getNextItem();
   try {
      pst->processItem();
   }
   catch (...) {
      // deal with exceptiondelete a;
      delete pstb;
      throw;
    }
   delete pst;}
}

In this code, the exception handler recovers the resources associated with the object pointed to by pst.

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;

Compliant Solution (std::unique_ptr)

This compliant solution uses std::unique_ptr to create objects that clean up after themselves should anything go wrong in the C::C() constructor. The std::unique_ptr applies the principles of RAII to pointers.

#include <memory>
 
struct A {/* ... */};
struct B {/* ... */};

class C {
  std::unique_ptr<A> a;
  std::unique_ptr<B> b;
protected:
  void init() noexcept(false);
public:
  C() : a(new A()), b(new B()) {
    init();
  }
};

Risk Assessment

Memory and other resource leaks will eventually cause a program to crash. If an attacker can provoke repeated resource leaks by forcing an exception to be thrown through the submission of suitably crafted data, then the attacker can mount a denial-of-service attack.

References

\[[Meyers 96|AA. C++ References#Meyers 96]\] Item 9: "Use destructors to prevent resource leaks".

Automated Detection

Related Vulnerabilities

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

Related Guidelines

Bibliography

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Image Added Image Added Image AddedMEM43-CPP. Release resources that require paired acquire and release in the object's destructor      08. Memory Management (MEM)      MSC17-CPP. Do not use longjmp