Exception Handling in C#: Essential Tips

As developers, writing robust code is rather essential than important and a fine grained exception handling is one good way to it. It not only allows you to handle errors in the code gracefully but also provides mechanism for troubleshooting in case something goes wrong, and trust me that will definitely happen.

No code is perfect, it is our effort to take it to the zenith of perfection.

Having said that let's discuss some important concepts around exception handling in C#.

• Catch Specific Exceptions: Don't always rely on base Exception class for catching errors. Although, it's the mother of exception handling but aiming specificity will help in troubleshooting.

try 
{
    // Specific file operation
} 
catch (FileNotFoundException ex) 
{
    logger.Error($"File not found: {ex.Message}");
} 
catch (UnauthorizedAccessException ex) 
{
    logger.Error($"Access denied: {ex.Message}");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    logger.Error(ex, "An unexpected error occurred.");
}        

• Log Exceptions: Always log exceptions for easier troubleshooting. Use popular libraries like SeriLog or NLog for it.
• Avoid Silent Failures: Provide user friendly messages back to the user for clarity.
• Global Exception Handling: Create a custom Error page and redirect the application to it in case of any unhandled exceptions and prevent the application from crashing.

app.UseExceptionHandler("/Error");        

What exception handling practices have you found most effective in your C# projects? Let's discuss in the comments!

#csharp #dotnet #exceptionhandling #codequality #softwaredeveopment #aspnetcore