Yes. It seems to work, but it might be a coincidence. The order of argument evaluation is undefined. It might be that the exception gets thrown before the owner

Yes. It seems to work, but it might be a coincidence. The order of argument evaluation is undefined. It might be that the exception gets thrown before the ownership is transferred, but it's just luck. I have modified your example a bit, to better trace what's happening: http://ideone.com/tgh0xe http://ideone.com/tgh0xe