Exception not caught in try catch block

Question

I do a simple throw "TEST THROW" and it isn't caught in my catch (std::exception& e). Is it because I'm catching an std::exception& e? I mean, are only exception classes derived from std::exception caught? If not, am I doing something wrong or is it normal? By the way, none of the two catch blocks caught the throw exception.

int main()
{
try
{
    throw "TEST THROW"; // TEST
    Core core;

    core.Init();
    core.Load();

    while (!core.requestCloseWindow)
    {
        core.HandleInput();

        core.Update();
        core.Draw();
    }

    core.Unload();
    core.window->close();
}
catch (std::exception& e)
{
    std::cerr << e.what() << std::endl;
    try
    {
        time_t rawTime;
        struct tm* timeInfo;
        char timeBuffer [80];

        time(&rawTime);
        timeInfo = localtime(&rawTime);

        strftime(timeBuffer, 80, "%F %T", timeInfo);
        puts(timeBuffer);

        std::ofstream ofs; // Pas besoin de close, car le destructeur le fait.
        ofs.exceptions(std::ofstream::failbit | std::ofstream::badbit);
        ofs.open("log.txt", std::ofstream::out | std::ofstream::app);
        ofs << e.what() << std::endl;
    }
    catch (std::exception& e)
    {
        std::cerr << "An error occured while writing to a log file!" << std::endl;
    }
}

return 0;

}

Answer 1

Another reason people may hit this issue, especially if they've been writing Java recently, is that they may be throwing a pointer to the exception.

/* WARNING WARNING THIS CODE IS WRONG DO NOT COPY */
try {
    throw new std::runtime_error("catch me");
} catch (std::runtime_error &err) {
    std::cerr << "exception caught and ignored: " << err.what() << std::end;
}
/* WARNING WARNING THIS CODE IS WRONG DO NOT COPY */

will not catch the std::runtime_error* you threw. It'll probably die with a call to std::terminate for the uncaught exception.

Don't allocate the exception with new, just throw the constructor by-value, e.g.

try {
    /* note: no 'new' here */
    throw std::runtime_error("catch me");
} catch (std::runtime_error &err) {
    std::cerr << "exception caught and ignored: " << err.what() << std::end;
}