C++ exception in JNI code aborts

[Ron Forrester]

We have a JNI layer which interfaces some legacy code to some java code.
When the legacy code throws a (C++) exception which is caught in the
JNI layer, the jre aborts. This only seems to happen on RedHat 7.0. On
Solaris, and earlier versions of Linux, this behavior is not seen. We
have whittled it down to the smallest possible example, which does not
involve any of our legacy code, and in which the exception is thrown and
caught in the JNI code itself.

We are using the 1.3.0 (mixed mode) Standard Edition of the JRE. Here is
the output from a run on RedHat 7.0:

    > Linux tunafish 2.2.16-22 #1 Tue Aug 22
    > 16:49:06 EDT 2000 i686 unknown
    > gcc 2.96
    > java version "1.3.0"
    > Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.3.0)
    > Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.0, mixed mode)
    >
    > Hello world from java main.
    > hello world from native [3]
    > ./it: line 5: 13342 Aborted                 java -showversion
    > -Djava.library.path=. -classpath . MainClass

And here is the output on RedHat 6:

    > Linux clam 2.2.16 #1 Thu Jun 15 12:09:18 PDT 2000 i686 unknown
    > gcc 2.95.2
    > java version "1.3.0" <<libmylib.cpp>>  <<MainClass.java>>  <<it>>
    > Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.3.0)
    > Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.0, mixed mode)
    >
    > Hello world from java main.
    > hello world from native [3]
    > cought the error
    > after try/catch block
    > Goodbye from java main.

Below is the JNI (shared object code) which is built like so:

    g++ -shared -o libmylib.so libmylib.cpp

And also below is the Java driver used to load the JNI code and fire it
up. Finally, note that
even if we build the libmylib.so statically linked to all runtime
components (glibc, etc), the problem
still occurs. We did upgrade the RedHat 7.0 box to the latest glibc we
could  find.

If anyone has any ideas why this is happening and how we might avoid it,
I
would really appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks in advance.
Ron Forrester

=-=-=-=-=-=- libmylib.cpp =-=-=-=-=-=-

#include "jni.h"
#include <stdio.h>

extern "C" JNIEXPORT void JNICALL Java_MainClass_aNativeCall
(JNIEnv *env, jobject jObj, jint i)
{
        try {
                printf("hello world from native [%d]\n", i);
                throw "wow";
                printf("no throw\n");
        }
        catch (...) {
                printf("cought the error\n");
        }
        printf("after try/catch block\n");
}

=-=-=-=-=-=-  MainClass.java =-=-=-=-=-=-

public class MainClass {

        static {
                try {
                        System.loadLibrary("mylib");
                } catch (Error e) {
                        System.out.println("failed to load the
library");
                        System.exit(1);
                }
        }// static for load library.

        /*
        */
        public static void main(String[] args) {

                System.out.println("Hello world from java main.");
                MainClass m = new MainClass();
                m.aNativeCall(3);
                System.out.println("Goodbye from java main.");
        }

        public native void aNativeCall(int i);
}