C++ get description of an exception caught in catch(…) block

There is one trick you might be able to use:

catch(...) {
    handle_exception();
}

void handle_exception() {
    try {
        throw;
    } catch (const std::exception &e) {
        std::cout << e.what() << "\n";
    } catch (const int i) {
        std::cout << i << "\n";
    } catch (const long l) {
        std::cout << l << "\n";
    } catch (const char *p) {
        std::cout << p << "\n";
    } catch (...) {
        std::cout << "nope, sorry, I really have no clue what that is\n";
    }
}

and so on, for as many different types as you think might be thrown. If you really know nothing about what might be thrown then even that second-to-last one is wrong, because somebody might throw a char* that doesn’t point to a nul-terminated string.

It’s generally a bad idea to throw anything that isn’t a std::exception or derived class. The reason std::exception exists is to allow everybody to throw and catch objects that they can do something useful with. In a toy program where you just want to get out of there and can’t even be bothered to include a standard header, OK, maybe throw an int or a string literal. I don’t think I’d make that part of a formal interface. Any exceptions you throw are part of your formal interface, even if you somehow forgot to document them.