How to break when a specific exception type is thrown in GDB?

Question

According to the documentation I can break on specific exception type by using conditional breakpoints. However the syntax for the condition isn\'t very clear to me:

Answer 1

When gdb command 'catch throw' fails, try this workaround :
(tested with Linux g++ 4.4.5/gdb 6.6)
1/ Add this code anywhere in the program to debug :

#include 
#include 
#include 

struct __cxa_exception {
    std::type_info *inf;
};
struct __cxa_eh_globals {
    __cxa_exception *exc;
};
extern "C" __cxa_eh_globals* __cxa_get_globals();
const char* what_exc() {
    __cxa_eh_globals* eh = __cxa_get_globals();
    if (eh && eh->exc && eh->exc->inf)
        return eh->exc->inf->name();
    return NULL;
}

2/ In gdb you will then be able to filter exceptions with :

(gdb) break __cxa_begin_catch  
(gdb) cond N (what_exc()?strstr(what_exc(),"exception_name"):0!=0)  

where N is the breakpoint number, and exception_name is the name of exception for which we wish to break.