Best practice managiing exception messages

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.NET4.5

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Hello,

it's been a while since i last posted a message on this site. Usually i can find what i'm looking for, but not today.

What i'm trying to find is an easy way to centralize exception messages in a .Net application. So the whole exception handling is taken care of, but currently the programmers are making up the messages that the exception throws. I made a separation between user-friendly messages and the actual exception that is being logged, but even then you can get many different messages for the same kind of problem.

What i was thinking about was work with enums that translate into a message in our custom exception, but thinking this over i fear its going be hell to manage as it grows and grows.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Pointing me to a good article would be very much appreciated as well.

Regards,

Franz

Posted 10-Sep-14 5:53am

Franz.net

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RaisKazi 10-Sep-14 14:18pm

Good Question. If this is related to Asp.net then I used Application_Error event of Global.asax. But not sure if that's a Best Practice in terms of Exception handling.

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CPallini · Answer 1 · 2014-09-10T08:15:00

Solution 1

Possibly this Code Project article fits your needs: "Exception Handling Best Practices in .NET"[^].

Posted 10-Sep-14 8:15am

CPallini

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Sep-14 0:36am

Something tells me not to trust this article. Some points are really good, but some... Just read it:

"Don't catch (Exception) more than once per thread". There are fields when capturing exception two or more times per thread is the best technique. You catch "raw" exception in different places, and then, those different places throw a different "application" exception with different semantic. This is too important feature of structured exception handling to ignore.

"Don't ever swallow exceptions" This chapter is almost true. The big problem is this "almost". Without giving the idea when exceptions to this rule has to be made, this positive advice becomes a disaster. The exclusions are quite rare, but they are so important and, in fact, typical, so not mentioning them is a real educational crime.

"Exceptions should be marked [Serializable]" The motivation to this advice, "you never know" is a bad adviser. Some exceptions are internal by design...

—SA

CPallini 11-Sep-14 1:20am

I think it is overall good. Experts like you know when a different path is better.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Sep-14 1:54am

Well, I already mentioned that many other points are good, do I have to agree with you. 5ed your answer; hope my little notes can help...
—SA

Franz.net 15-Sep-14 11:18am

I read this article and it makes some good points! Though it doesn't cover my predicament