Take a look at Section 5.4 of draft Technical Report on C++ Performance
which is specifically about the overhead of try-catch statements in c++.
A little excerpt from the section:
5.4.1.1.2 Time Overhead of the “Code” Approach
• On entry to each try-block
♦ Commit changes to variables enclosing the try-block
♦ Stack the execution context
♦ Stack the associated catch clauses
• On exit from each try-block
♦ Remove the associated catch clauses
♦ Remove the stacked execution context
• When calling regular functions
♦ If a function has an exception-specification, register it for checking
• As local and temporary objects are created
♦ Register each one with the current exception context as it is created
• On throw or re-throw
♦ Locate the corresponding catch clause (if any) – this involves some runtime check (possibly resembling RTTI checks)
If found, then:
destroy the registered local objects
check the exception-specifications of the functions called in-between
use the associated execution context of the catch clause
Otherwise:
call the terminate_handler6
