Exception Handling Abuse in C# with an Example

In this article, I am going to discuss the Exception Handling Abuse in C# and then we will see how to prevent Exception Handling Abuse in C# with one example. Please read our previous article where we discussed the Inner Exception in C# with an example.

Exceptions are nothing but runtime errors that occur during the execution of a program. For example, when an application is executing a database query, due to some reason the database connection is lost, then we will get SQLException runtime error. Exception handling is generally used to handle these scenarios. 

But sometimes, as a programmer, we are using exception handling mechanisms to implement programming logic which is bad, and this is called as exception handling abuse.

Example1: Here we are using exception handling to implement logical flow:

namespace ExceptionHandlingDemo

{

class Program

{

public static void Main()

{

try

{

//Convert.ToInt32() can throw FormatException, if the entered value

//cannot be converted to integer. So use int.TryParse() instead

Console.WriteLine("Please enter First Number");

int FNO = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());

Console.WriteLine("Please enter Second Number");

int SNO = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());

int Result = FNO / SNO;

Console.WriteLine("Result = {0}", Result);

}

catch (FormatException)

{

Console.WriteLine("Only numbers are allowed!");

}

catch (OverflowException)

{

Console.WriteLine("Only numbers between {0} & {1} are allowed",

Int32.MinValue, Int32.MaxValue);

}

catch (DivideByZeroException)

{

Console.WriteLine("Secoond Number cannot be zero");

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);

}

Console.ReadLine();

}

}

}

Preventing exception handling abuse in C#:

Let’s rewrite the same example that doesn’t use exception handling to control the program’s logical flow.

namespace ExceptionHandlingDemo

{

class Program

{

public static void Main()

{

try

{

Console.WriteLine("Please enter First Number");

int FNO;

//int.TryParse() will not throw an exception, instead returns false

//if the entered value cannot be converted to integer

bool isValidFNO = int.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out FNO);

if (isValidFNO)

{

Console.WriteLine("Please enter Second Number");

int SNO;

bool isValidSNO = int.TryParse(Console.ReadLine(), out SNO);

if (isValidSNO && SNO != 0)

{

int Result = FNO / SNO;

Console.WriteLine("Result = {0}", Result);

}

else

{

//Check if the second number is zero and print a friendly error

//message instead of allowing DivideByZeroException exception

//to be thrown and then printing error message to the user.

if (isValidSNO && SNO == 0)

{

Console.WriteLine("Second Number cannot be zero");

}

else

{

Console.WriteLine("Only numbers between {0} && {1} are allowed",

Int32.MinValue, Int32.MaxValue);

}

}

}

else

{

Console.WriteLine("Only numbers between {0} && {1} are allowed",

Int32.MinValue, Int32.MaxValue);

}

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);

}

Console.ReadLine();

}

}

}

OUTPUT:

In the next article, I am going to discuss the Delegates in C# with some real-time examples. Here, in this article, I try to explain the Exception Handling Abuse step by step with one example. I would like to have your feedback. Please post your feedback, question, or comments about this article.