Video: Exceptions in C# (Bulgarian)

April 13, 2022 Nikolay Kostov (Nikolay.IT)

Topics covered:

  • What are Exceptions?
  • Handling Exceptions
  • The System.Exception Class
  • Types of Exceptions and their Hierarchy
  • Raising (Throwing) Exceptions
  • Best Practices

Video (in Bulgarian)

Presentation Content

What are Exceptions?

  • The exceptions in .NET Framework are classic implementation of the OOP exception model
  • Deliver powerful mechanism for centralized handling of errors and unusual events
  • Substitute procedure-oriented approach, in which each function returns error code
  • Simplify code construction and maintenance
  • Allow the problematic situations to be processed at multiple levels

The System.Exception Class

  • Exceptions in .NET are objects
  • The System.Exception class is base for all exceptions in CLR
    • Contains information for the cause of the error / unusual situation
      • Message – text description of the exception
      • StackTrace – the snapshot of the stack at the moment of exception throwing
      • InnerException – exception caused the currentexception (if any)

Types of Exceptions

  • .NET exceptions inherit from System.Exception
  • The system exceptions inherit from System.SystemException , e.g.
    • System.ArgumentException
    • System.NullReferenceException
    • System.OutOfMemoryException
    • System.StackOverflowException
  • User-defined exceptions should inherit from System.Exception ([more info])

Throwing Exceptions

  • Exceptions are thrown (raised) by throw keyword in C#
    • Used to notify the calling code in case of error or unusual situation
  • When an exception is thrown:
    • The program execution stops
    • The exception travels over the stack until a suitable catch block is reached to handle it
  • Unhandled exceptions display error message

Choosing the Exception Type

  • When an invalid parameter is passed to a method:
    • ArgumentException , ArgumentNullException , ArgumentOutOfRangeException
  • When requested operation is not supported
    • NotSupportedException
  • When a method is still not implemented
    • NotImplementedException
  • If no suitable standard exception class is available
    • Create own exception class (inherit Exception )

Exceptions: Best Practices

  • catch blocks should begin with the exceptions lowest in the hierarchy
    • And continue with the more general exceptions
    • Otherwise a compilation error will occur
  • Each catch block should handle only these exceptions which it expects
    • If a method is not competent to handle an exception, it should be left unhandled
    • Handling all exceptions disregarding their type is popular bad practice (anti-pattern)!
  • When raising an exception always pass to the constructor good explanation message
  • When throwing an exception always pass a good description of the problem
    • Exception message should explain what causes the problem and how to solve it
    • Good: " _Size _ should be integer in range [ 1…15] "
    • Good: " _Invalid _ state. First call Initialize () "
    • Bad: " Unexpected error "
    • Bad: " Invalid argument "
  • Exceptions can decrease the application performance
    • Throw exceptions only in situations which are really exceptional and should be handled
    • Do not throw exceptions in the normal program control flow (e.g. for invalid user input)
  • CLR could throw exceptions at any time with no way to predict them
    • E.g. System.OutOfMemoryException

Summary

  • Exceptions provide flexible error handling mechanism in .NET Framework
    • Allow errors to be handled at multiple levels
    • Each exception handler processes only errors of particular type (and its child types)
      • Other types of errors are processed by some other handlers later
    • Unhandled exceptions cause error messages
  • Try-finally ensures given code block is always executed (even when an exception is thrown)
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