Shall I use cerr

Question

Is it in good style do use cerr in situation described below?

try
    {
    cout << a + b;
    }
    catch(const IntException& e)
    {
        c         


        

Answer 1

One detail to keep in mind is that sending output directly to the terminal (with either cout or cerr), you do limit your ability to test for your error messages. It's always worth posing the question "How do I unit test this?".

Answer 2

Sure, it's good to use cerr there. You can redirect cerr differently from cout, sometimes that helps you to highlight problems that could go buried in a huge cout log file.

Answer 3

Yes, because while by default they both go to the terminal, you could change where their output is directed, and you may wish cerr to go to a log file while cout continues to just go to stdout.

Essentially it gives you more control over where different output goes if you want it now or in the future.

Answer 4

stderr is the traditional stream to send error messages (so that the OS/shell/whatever can capture error messages separately from "normal" output), so yes, use std::cerr!

I make no comment as to whether catching an exception simply to print it out is any better than simply letting the exception propagating out of your application...