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Also, a inherited class should only throw exceptions that the base class throws, or descendants thereof.
I are Troll 
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IMO, it really depends on what description the pre-defined .NET exception is offering. Is it enough for the user to understand what went wrong? If it isn't, then you should create your own exception and put in a custom name and message to let the user know exactly about the problem.
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I would say you need to build your own exception set when you (your clients) don't like the exception set Microsoft is providing - as simple as that.
The funniest thing about this particular signature is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything it's too late to stop reading it.
My latest tip/trick
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If the condition that triggers the exception is reasonably generic (a null argument, or a value out of range), I use one of the predefined .NET exceptions. If the condition is domain-specific to the application, then I define my own.
For example, I have a class that handles TCP/IP socket communications between my application and a Windows service. This class can throw InvalidCastExceptions, given that our protocol includes data type information along with each data value in a message. This ensures that the sender/receiver on my end agrees with the receiver/sender on the other end. It also can throw BufferException or ReadSizeException, exceptions defined in the class derived from ApplicationException, that reflect protocol errors.
Patrick Skelton wrote: According to some books I have read, the exceptions built into .NET should generally be reserved for .NET's own use and developers should create custom exceptions for classes they create.
This is symptomatic of an 'anti-pattern' you see occasionally. Some programmers think that they always have to insulate their applications from potential changes to the framework they're using. They build wrapper classes for everything. The wrappers end up being extremely thin layers on top of the actual framework. All they accomplish with this is to obfuscate their use of the framework. This makes their code more difficult to debug and maintain, since they rarely document framework considerations and constraints that their wrapper promotes.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I try to handle an exception-causing code to avoid throwing an exception, and let the code fail gracefully (not necessarily terminating a process or action, but using reasonable properties to allow it to continue.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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Yeah, it depends on the situation. I use the built-in Exceptions when they seem appropriate and define my own when I want to add more information. As with Exceptions raised by ADO.net code -- I can throw problem-specific Exceptions (duplicate, referential integrity, etc.) that also include the text of the statement and any parameters involved so they can be handled appropriately by the application.
Also, if you do define your own Exception, derive it from the appropriate base Exception -- your own OutOfRange should derive from the base OutOfRange.
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I'll agreed with the other recommendations also. First, try to prevent the exception in the first place but we all know that is not possible or desirable in some situation. If the exception fits a built-in type, ArgumentNullException for instance then by all means use it. However, if you need to differentiate or have a custom case then certainly creating your own is valid.
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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I generally just do this instead of creating custom exception objects:
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception("My custom exception message", ex);
}
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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Yes but there are times when it is advantageousness to differentiate between a custom exception
try
{
Foo();
}
catch(UserIsMoronException ex)
{
BeatSensless();
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
Log();
}
I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt
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Mark Nischalke wrote: catch(UserIsMoronException ex)
They REALLY need to add this one to the framework. 
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: Mark Nischalke wrote:
catch(UserIsMoronException ex)
They REALLY need to add this one to the framework.
They did, and 85% of the exceptions where caught by, ... you guessed it right... 
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Having a type-safe object has some advantages over a string.
It's harder to filter if you're examining a string, and I like having a class that describes the problem and being able to catch and handle that specific case. Or worse- let the user decide whether or not those kind of exceptions need be logged (like file-access errors for the sysadmin, common networkexceptions for the networkadmin, and whether the user allows the app to send unhandled exceptions with a stacktrace back home) There's a string in the custom exception of course, along with placeholders for values to help diagnose the problem. But in code, I can act on the object itself, and I don't need to depend on the formatting of a string.
It's a matter of preference, I guess, as you can accomplish the same visual and functional endresult.
No, the worst kind of exceptions are translated ones. Yes, I know about the unlocalize website, but that's not exactly convenient. I'm hoping that I can rectify some by removing the .NET language packs from my PC.
I are Troll 
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I generally just do this instead of creating custom exception objects:
catch (Exception ex)
{
throw new Exception("My custom exception message", ex);
}
I believe that is a mistake. I discuss this on my article[^], more deeply but there are 3 main problems with this approach:
1. Internationalization: when you need to catch your exception you'll need to have some sort of switch on the text message. With i18n, which message should you use on the switch?
2. You'll force your users to catch (Exception ex), which is a too broad class and they'll need to handle a lot of other different exceptions.
3. You'l force your users to stop using the more efficient catch (XXXXException) and use a switch instead, which is both less readable and less efficient.
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The well designed application doesn’t needs exceptions! 
In a more serious note, the only case I create custom exceptions is when I’m dealing with COM objects and/or native libraries in order to wrap their error handling and error messages. In any other cases the build-in exceptions and re-throwing them in some cases seems to be enough for me.
There is only one Ashley Judd and Salma Hayek is her prophet!
Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Depends on the situation. Mostly one should use built in exceptions, but for some reason the exception is too generic or does not fit in your scenario, then creating a custom exception is better.
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My decision is to define a custom exception when the need to do so is... well... exceptional
Really though…
If you have an exception definition that clearly fits an existing model then use it, why reinvent the wheel at all?
If you are creating a new failure state, usually most likely based upon things like a domain specific business rule, then you define a new exception of your own design. BUT you have to keep in mind that quite often even doing this can cause issues because as we all know business rules change. This means that you may want to be slightly less specific and more generalized by defining a business rule exception and allowing it to express the rule broken, and the why it was considered broken enough to trigger the exception.
I would like to know what books you say are specifically stating that new exceptions should always be defined instead of using the Dotnet ones. I would have to have a conversation with that author I am not even sure I see the value in writing all custom exceptions when creating a whole new code library of your new library is something that sits on top of the Dotnet framework. If you are writing something that is completely disconnected at all form the Dotnet stuff then yeah, you have to create your own exceptions to throw, but that makes no sense in this context really since your question was more related to being told to not use Dotnet exceptions .
If you did want to keep all the exceptions specific to your application layer then there is nothing from stopping you from writing all your own custom exception code, but I would still recommend that you consider catching the Dotnet specific stuff and then just re throwing your own as a general application side exception and then include the Dotnet exception in that object. Seems a bit messy but I guess it is doable and will not require too much writing on your part. Just remember that every additional line of code you have to write can possibly introduce a new error (and thus CAUSE an exception ) so I like to keep them down to a minimum.
One other argument I would make for maintaining the existing exceptions provided by the framework is that anytime they change you need to ensure that your code changes also. This means that if you have wrapped all of the Dotnet exceptions in your code, any time the framework changes you have to review all those changes to see what effects they have on your code. Not that you may not have to do the same if the base libraries change their exceptions and you have to catch them, but usually one of a few things happen there. First, they will keep the older exception around for a while tagged in the new framework that it is being pulled soon so that new code compilation will not allow the use of it but existing code can still use it, and second you have some time to make changes. This is also a good reason to always be sure to include a general catch statement if you want to be sure that you can grab any problems that come up due to your missing a specific exception that perhaps is not well documented or you just missed.
Whew.. a long response…
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I think you would do this when you want to specify additional information beyond a string message describing what went wrong. Some exceptions take advantage of their name to provide additional information, like NullReferenceException. If one is thrown, clearly something is null and the code didn't expect it to be. SqlException contains additional properties related to line numbers in stored procedures that failed, for example.
So, if you'd like to provide additional properties to describe what went wrong, create a class that inherits Exception that has those properties.
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I'll typically only write custom exceptions in the Model (Business) layer. The reason for doing this is so the presentation layer can consume the exception and display a message which is non-technical and meaningful to the user. Probably breaches best practices but it works well example:
Model receives an OutOfRangeException, Model creates a MyModelException with the message "The number of passengers must be greater than 0" and throws the exception to the presentation layer.
Architecture is extensible, code is minimal.
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Wow! What a response. Thanks to everyone. Some very good advice in there, and lots to think about. I'm glad I asked; that was really helpful.
Best wishes, Patrick
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Patrick. There are some questions which it is a joy to answer, and this is definitely one of them. Good question.
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Patrick Skelton wrote: According to some books I have read, the exceptions built into .NET should generally be reserved for .NET's own use
If that was the case, why the hell are those classes public? I have never read anything like that.
You should be creating custom exceptions only when your code interacts with something external. For instance, a service should return custom exceptions back to client in order to hide the complete information of the actual exception. Not because you are ashamed of it but it doesn't makes sense client knowing details of services. Same logic I use in case anything wrong happens in database. Apart from my data layer code, none of the layers get the complete trace of the error.
Apart from all the custom exceptions, I also keep one catch block taking in Exception as a type (in the outermost code layer) just in case we get an exception which I have not handled properly.
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In my opinion there are two situations which REQUIRE the creation of your own exception class.
1. You have a business or data layer checking errors from data entry and throwing an exception. Example: Customer name is missing. By having an exception class specific to your application, the user interface can then create custom error messages attach them to the appropriate user control and display them in a user friendly way that is specific to your application. This also allows for easy implementation of internationalization (localization) by allowing you to create a module that will pick the language specific error message for each individual situation. You don't really want to do that kind of localization at the lower levels.
2. You are implementing a service that crosses machine boundaries. In that case, you want an exception class that serializes well and provides the necessary detail to both debug any situation and to provide sufficiently detailed error messages that will be useful to the end user.
Personally, I am still trying to get used to the idea that throwing exceptions is an appropriate coding practice at an application level. I come from an assembly language and UNIX background where "exceptions" were machine-level faults that totally destroy the application code context, so it was something you would never do in application code. But in the .Net world, throwing exceptions is just as appropriate for handling application errors as returning an error code would be in the UNIX world.
Robert Tanenbaum
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Hi, Robert,
Thanks for that.
I know what you mean about exceptions. I too cut my teeth on assembly language, and even when I started venturing into C/C++ (in video games), exceptions were to be avoided wherever possible. In fact, one game I worked on shipped with a release exception handler that simply did while( 1 );.
Best wishes, Patrick
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Note : This one is Extreme Hypothetical dream
Is it possible to build a CPU that understands Itermediate Language straight away. ( No JIT, No unmanaged)
What could be the blocking factor's if we can't take it to the next Consumer Electronic Show (CES)
Regards,
Vythees
Miles to go before sleep...
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Theoretically, it would be possible. However, if you removed JIT from the equation, for instance, how would you expect the application to be optimised? If you remove unmanaged, then how do you expect to accomplish tasks such as file writing?
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