How to throw std::exceptions with variable messages?

Question

This is an example of what I often do when I want to add some information to an exception:

std::stringstream errMsg;
errMsg << \"Could not load config          


        

Answer 1

The standard exceptions can be constructed from a std::string:

#include <stdexcept>

char const * configfile = "hardcode.cfg";
std::string const anotherfile = get_file();

throw std::runtime_error(std::string("Failed: ") + configfile);
throw std::runtime_error("Error: " + anotherfile);

Note that the base class std::exception can not be constructed thus; you have to use one of the concrete, derived classes.

Answer 2

The following class might come quite handy:

struct Error : std::exception
{
    char text[1000];

    Error(char const* fmt, ...) __attribute__((format(printf,2,3))) {
        va_list ap;
        va_start(ap, fmt);
        vsnprintf(text, sizeof text, fmt, ap);
        va_end(ap);
    }

    char const* what() const throw() { return text; }
};

Usage example:

throw Error("Could not load config file '%s'", configfile.c_str());