Shouldn't Poco::Exception::what() return the full message?

[francisr]

I'm wondering if would be better to have Poco::Exception::what() return the full display message instead of only the exception name. There can be situations where the error handling code does not support Poco and can only catch standard exceptions.

[guenter]

This can't be implemented in an efficient way (the complete message would have to be stored in the exception object) as what() returns const char*, so the complete message must be buffered somewhere. Also, allocating memory in what() is out of question since what is nothrow.

[marlowabnp]

I agree with the OP. I think that what() should return the details of what went wrong. I realise that this means exception objects carry some weight but I do not see any alternative. I only just discovered that poco exceptions work this way. I am shocked. I know the theory about wanting to avoid heap allocation when we already know things are going wrong but maybe there is another way around this. What if the exception only stored the first 100 chars of the error? Then Poco::Exception could have a char array and avoid heap store allocation.

Regards,

Andrew Marlow