When is using 'typeid' the best solution?

Question

There are many reasons not to use typeid. Other than for using members of type_info (implementation defined behavior), it is usually (always?) pos

Answer 1

I use it to probe the class type of the exception in my catch all handler.

// fudge vtable existence (thrown exceptions must have one)
class StubException
{
    virtual ~StubException();
};

.....

catch(...)
{
    StubException *e = getExceptionObject(); // compiler/rt specific
    std::string s = typeid(e).name();

    ...

    throw;
}

The function getExceptionObject() is part of a small utility library I wrong to access additional information about exceptions. It comes in very handy when a function throws an exception I should be catch but don't. It has definitely saved a lot of frustration over the years since I immediately know the type of exception that needs coverage.