If a divide by zero error occurs in a program, it's detected by hardware. The way this manifests itself to the program can and will depend upon

It's not all that clear how one would detect and recover from a divide by zero error in a simple portable way. Usually, users just ignore the issue which usually results in immediate program termination when this situation occurs.

This library will detect divide by zero errors before the operation is invoked. Any errors of this nature are handled according to the exception_policy selected by the library user.

#include <stdexcept>
#include <iostream>

#include <boost/safe_numerics/safe_integer.hpp>

int main(int, const char *[]){
    // problem: cannot recover from arithmetic errors
    std::cout << "example 7: ";
    std::cout << "cannot recover from arithmetic errors" << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Not using safe numerics" << std::endl;

    try{
        int x = 1;
        int y = 0;
        // can't do this as it will crash the program with no
        // opportunity for recovery - comment out for example
        // std::cout << x / y;
        std::cout << "error cannot be handled at runtime!" << std::endl;
    }
    catch(const std::exception &){
        std::cout << "error handled at runtime!" << std::endl;
    }
    // solution: replace int with safe<int>
    std::cout << "Using safe numerics" << std::endl;
    try{
        using namespace boost::safe_numerics;
        const safe<int> x = 1;
        const safe<int> y = 0;
        std::cout << x / y;
        std::cout << "error NOT detected!" << std::endl;
    }
    catch(const std::exception & e){
        std::cout << "error handled at runtime!" << e.what() << std::endl;
    }
    return 0;
}

example 7: cannot recover from arithmetic errors
Not using safe numerics
error NOT detectable!
Using safe numerics
error detected:divide by zero: domain error