Order of Handlers

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The order in which catch handlers appear is significant, because handlers for a given try block are examined in order of their appearance. For example, it is an error to place the handler for a base class before the handler for a derived class. After a matching catch handler is found, subsequent handlers are not examined. As a result, an ellipsis catch handler must be the last handler for its try block. For example:

// ...
try
{
    // ...
}
catch( ... )
{
    // Handle exception here.
}
// Error: the next two handlers are never examined.
catch( const char * str )
{
    cout << "Caught exception: " << str << endl;
}
catch( CExcptClass E )
{
    // Handle CExcptClass exception here.
}

In this example, the ellipsis catch handler is the only handler that is examined.