How to avoid putting std::string in exception class?

Question

Here is my exception class:

class Win32Failure : public std::exception
{
public:
    Win32Failure( char const* win32_function_name, LONG error_code );

    char const* win32_function_name() const { return win32_function_name_; }
    LONG error_code() const { return error_code_; }

    virtual char const* what() const;

private:

    std::string GetFormattedMessage() const;

    char const* win32_function_name_;
    LONG error_code_;
    std::string error_text_;
};

Win32Failure::Win32Failure( char const* win32_function_name, LONG error_code )
    : error_code_(error_code)
    , win32_function_name_(win32_function_name)
{
    std::stringstream error_msg;
    error_msg   << win32_function_name << " failed with code: "
                << error_code << " (" << GetFormattedMessage() << ")"
                ;

    error_text_ = error_msg.str();
}

std::string Win32Failure::GetFormattedMessage() const
{
    TCHAR message_buffer[1000];

    FormatMessage(
        //FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER |
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM |
        FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS,
        NULL,
        error_code_,
        0, // Default language
        reinterpret_cast<LPTSTR>(&message_buffer),
        sizeof(message_buffer) / sizeof(TCHAR),
        NULL
        );

    return std::string(message_buffer);
}

char const* Win32Failure::what() const
{
    return error_text_.c_str();
}

The boost exception guidelines recommend not placing any objects that allocate memory as members of my exception class. In this case, the usage of std::string violates this. I respect the rule for this, however I can't think of a way to implement the what() override without using std::string to manage the memory (versus requiring the caller to manage it for me).

I could use a fixed-size buffer as a member and use C library functions (like snprintf()) to do the job, but this isn't very idiomatic to C++ and thus not an ideal solution.

Is this a suitable implementation of an exception class? If not, what improvements can be made?

Answer 1

For what it's worth, all of the exception types defined in <stdexcept> take std::string as arguments. This could be interpreted by the library designers that it is "ok". I think the main argument against this is if you're in a memory constrained environment, you may not be able to allocate memory to throw your exception.