Develop Reference

How to differentiate between InvalidOperationException exception types?

How to detect the InvalidOperationException type
Here is the inner exception message:
System.InvalidOperationException: ExecuteNonQuery requires an open and available Connection. The connection's current state is closed.
I need to detect exactly this type of exceptions to handle it.
Can I know its HResult number or the exception code? or another way?

This code may help
try
{
//your code here...
}
catch (Exception exception) when (exception.InnerException is InvalidOperationException)
{
var exceptionMessage = "ExecuteNonQuery requires an open and available Connection";
if (exception.Message.Contains(exceptionMessage) || exception.InnerException.Message.Contains(exceptionMessage))
{
//handle it...
}
}

You can use a try/catch exception handling hierarchy, so that InvalidOperationException will be caught first and handled separately from other exception types such as the generic exception type.
try
{
// Normal workflow up here
}
catch (System.InvalidOperationException ioex)
{
// Handle InvalidOperationException
Console.WriteLine(ioex.StackTrace);
}
catch (System.Exception ex)
{
// Handle generic exception
Console.WriteLine(ex.StackTrace);
}
However, your question suggests that this will not work for you, because you mention an inner exception. In that case you probably need to do some type checking on the inner exception like this:
try
{
// Normal workflow up here
}
catch (System.Exception ex)
{
if (ex.InnerException is InvalidOperationException)
{
// Handle InvalidOperationException
}
else
{
// Handle generic exception
}
Console.WriteLine(ex.StackTrace);
}

Could you give us more context? It would make it easier for us to answer your question.
However, if I understand you correctly, you try to process 'something' with the inner exception. As of C# 6 there are exception filters available. For more information about exception filters see Exception filters.
The documentation also provides an example.
In your specific case, you could use the exception filter as follows:
try
{
// Do something that could cause a InvalidOperationException
}
catch (InvalidOperationException ex) when (ex.InnerException is SomeTypeOfException)
{
// Handle this type of exception
}
catch (InvalidOperationException ex) when (ex.InnerException is AnotherSomeTypeOfException)
{
// Handle this kind of exception
}

What is the advantage of using Exception filters and when should I use them?

Comparing the old way versus the new way of error handling, by using Exception filters, what is exactly the advantage for me of using filters and when should I use it? is there an scenario where I can get a good advantage of this new feature?
I have read about the unwinding stack but still I don't get the scenario where we can not handle that under the old way. Explain like I'm 5 please.
try
{
Foo.DoSomethingThatMightFail(null);
}
catch (MyException ex) when (ex.Code == 42)
{
Console.WriteLine("Error 42 occurred");
}
vs
try
{
Foo.DoSomethingThatMightFail(null);
}
catch (MyException ex)
{
if (ex.Code == 42)
Console.WriteLine("Error 42 occurred");
else
throw;
}
I know there is other version of this question, the problem is, that the question mention benefits that I cant actually find, for instance.
Exception filters are preferable to catching and rethrowing because
they leave the stack unharmed. If the exception later causes the stack
to be dumped, you can see where it originally came from, rather than
just the last place it was rethrown.
after doing some testing, I did not see the difference between both, I still see the exception from the place it was rethrown. So, or the information is not confirmed, I don't understand the Exception filters( that is why I am asking), or I am doing it wrong (also please correct me if I am wrong).
class specialException : Exception
{
public DateTime sentDateTime { get; } = DateTime.Now;
public int code { get; } = 0;
public string emailsToAlert { get; } = "email#domain.com";
}
then:
try
{
throw new specialException();
//throw new Exception("Weird exception");
//int a = Int32.Parse("fail");
}
catch (specialException e) when(e.code == 0)
{
WriteLine("E.code 0");
throw;
//throw e;
}
catch (FormatException e)
{
if (cond1)
{
WriteLine("cond1 " + e.GetBaseException().Message+" - "+e.StackTrace);
throw;
}
throw;
}
catch (Exception e) //when (cond2)
{
Console.WriteLine("cond2! " + e.Message);
throw;
}

I don't understand Paulo's answer. He may be correct or he may not be.
I definitely disagree with Alexander's answer. It is not just syntactic sugar. Pure syntactic sugar means it's solely an easier way of writing something, and that execution will be unchanged.
However, that's not the case in this situation. As Thomas Levesque points out in his blog, exception filters do not unwind the stack. So when debugging the program, if you have an exception thrown in your try block, with exception filters you'll be able to see what the state of the values are in the try block. If you weren't using exception filters, your code would enter the catch block and you would lose information about the state of the variables in the try block.
Note that I'm not talking about the stacktrace (it's a different but related concept to the stack). The stacktrace would be unchanged unless you explicitly did rethrow the exception as in throw exception; in a catch block where exception is the caught exception.
So while in some cases you can think of it as something that may or may not make your code cleaner (depending on your opinion of the syntax), it does change the behavior.

Exception filters have been added to C# because they were in Visual Basic and the "Roslyn" team found them useful when developing "Roslyn".
Beware that the filter runs in the context of the throw and not in the context of the catch.
Anyhow, one use might be something like this:
try
{
//...
}
catch (SqlException ex) when (ex.Number == 2)
{
// ...
}
catch (SqlException ex)
{
// ...
}
Edited:
One might think this is just syntactic sugar over this:
try
{
//...
}
catch (SqlException ex) when (ex.Number == 2)
{
// ...
}
catch (SqlException ex)
{
if (ex.Number == 2)
{
// ...
}
else
{
// ...
}
}
But if we change the code for this:
try
{
//...
}
catch (SqlException ex) when (ex.Number == 2)
{
// ...
}
It will be more like this:
try
{
//...
}
catch (SqlException ex) when (ex.Number == 2)
{
// ...
}
catch (SqlException ex)
{
if (ex.Number == 2)
{
// ...
}
else
{
throw
}
}
But there's one fundamental difference. The exception is not caught and rethrown if ex.Number is not 2. It's just not caught if ex.Number is not 2.

UPD: As pointed out in the answer by Paulo Morgado, the feature has been in CLR for quite some time and C# 6.0 only added syntax support for it. My understanding of it, however, remains as a syntactic sugar, e.g. the syntax that allows me to filter exceptions in a nicer way than it used to be, irrespective of how the previous "straightforward" method works under the hood.
=====
In my understanding, this is a syntactic sugar that allows you to more clearly define the block there your exception is going to be handled.
Consider the following code:
try
{
try
{
throw new ArgumentException() { Source = "One" };
throw new ArgumentException() { Source = "Two" };
throw new ArgumentException() { Source = "Three" };
}
catch (ArgumentException ex) when (ex.Source.StartsWith("One")) // local
{
Console.WriteLine("This error is handled locally");
}
catch (ArgumentException ex) when (ex.Source.StartsWith("Two")) // separate
{
Console.WriteLine("This error is handled locally");
}
}
catch (ArgumentException ex) // global all-catcher
{
Console.WriteLine("This error is handled globally");
}
Here you can clearly see that first and second exception are handled in the respective blocks that are separated using when safeguard, whereas the one global catch-all block will catch only the third exception. The syntax is clearer that catching all the exceptions in every block, something like:
catch (ArgumentException ex) // local
{
if (ex.Source.StartsWith("One"))
{
Console.WriteLine("This error is handled locally");
}
else
{
throw;
}
}

Is multiple try-catch in error sensitive code considered a good practice?

I have a code segment that is responsible for orchestrating the execution of a few modules and it is very sensitive to errors - I want to make sure I log and alert about every exception that occurs.
Right now I have something like this:
try
{
ModuleAResult aResult = ModuleA.DoSomethingA();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
string errorMessage = string.Format("Module A failed doing it's thing. Specific exception: {0}", ex.Message);
// Log exception, send alerts, etc.
}
try
{
ModuleBResult bResult = ModuleB.DoSomethingB();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
string errorMessage = string.Format("Module B failed doing it's thing. Specific exception: {0}", ex.Message);
// Log exception, send alerts, etc.
}
// etc for other modules.
It looks to me that the multiple try-catch is making this segment less readable. Is it indeed the right thing to do?

Yes, it's the right thing.
But you should have the performance in in mind, maybe it's better to put all method calls in one try/catch and add stack trace and error information in the exception in the methiod itself.
public void ModuleA.DoSomethingA()
{
throw new Exception("Error in module A");
}
try
{
ModuleAResult aResult = ModuleA.DoSomethingA();
ModuleBResult bResult = ModuleB.DoSomethingB();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// get information about exception in the error message
}

You did well.
This way, you can process the error after each module. If you want to run it all and then do error handling, consider this alternative:
try
{
ModuleAResult aResult = ModuleA.DoSomethingA();
ModuleBResult bResult = ModuleB.DoSomethingB();
}
catch(ModuleAException ex)
{
// handle specific error
}
catch(ModuleBException ex)
{
// handle other specific error
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// handle all other errors, do logging, etc.
}

i think that depends on the approach that you want to follow.
It seems like you error messsages are different for each module that raises exception so i guess the approach that you followed is right.
you could have put the whole thing in a big try - catch block then in that case you will not know which module caused the exception as a generic excpetion gets printed.
try
{
ModuleAResult aResult = ModuleA.DoSomethingA();
ModuleBResult bResult = ModuleB.DoSomethingB();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
string errorMessage = string.Format("Either Module A or B failed", ex.Message);
// Log exception, send alerts, etc.
}
So if you want your exception handling to not be cleaner use the above code.
Otherwise what you followed is absolutely fine.

C# oracle : catch all exceptions relative to connectivity?

In c#, can I catch all errors about (non) connectivity to an Oracle database?
I don't want to catch error about badly written query but only errors like No listener, connection lost...
If queries are badly written (or table are missing) then this is my fault.
But if Oracle or the network is down then this should be held by another department.

Write your code in which you build the connection in a try catch part:
try
{
BuildConnection(connectionString);
}
catch (OracleException ex)
{
//Connectivity Error
}

Errors between ORA-12150 to ORA-12236 are related to connection errors. A few examples:
ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified
ORA-12152: TNS:unable to send break message
ORA-12157: TNS:internal network communication error
Please refer to https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e17766/net12150.htm

Simple answer for this Type of problem is Use Try Catch Block like
try
{
// your code
}
catch (OracleException ex)
{
}
MSDN HELP

Sure - you can catch specific exception types, or if they're all the same exception type, you can catch it, check to see if it's a specific type, and re-throw ones you don't want to handle. Not having your syntax, here's an example...
try
{
// your Oracle code
}
catch (OracleException ex)
{
if (ex.Message == "Something you don't want caught")
{
throw;
}
else
{
// handle
}
}

errors like No listener, connection lost are still caught in System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException, however, you may inspect ErrorCode and Errors to handle different situations accordingly, say, not listener or connection lost etc.
MSDN does not seem to document all possible errors, however, you may write a few unit tests or integration tests to learn what appear in ErrorCode and Errors, then write error handlers in production codes accordingly.
OracleException contains only ErrorCode not Errors. So you may be using switch(e.ErrorCode) to handle different situations.

I observed that each time a network exception occurs, then a SocketException can be found in inner exceptions.
I also observed that when a network exception occurs, the first inner exception is of type «OracleInternal.Network.NetworkException» but unfortunately, this class is internal...
Based on this observations, I would code something like this:
public void RunQuery()
{
try
{
var con = new OracleConnection("some connection string");
con.Open();
var cmd = con.CreateCommand();
// ...
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
}
catch (Exception ex) when (IsNetworkException(ex))
{
// Here, a network exception occurred
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// Here, an other exception occurred
}
}
private static bool IsNetworkException(Exception ex)
{
var exTmp = ex;
while (exTmp != null)
{
if (exTmp is SocketException)
return true;
exTmp = exTmp.InnerException;
}
return false;
}

The mystery of the twin exceptions

Here's an interesting question. I have a system that attempts to run some initialization code. If it fails, we call the deinitializer to clean everything up.
Because we call the deinitializer in exception handling, we run the risk that both initialize and deinitialize will fail, and hypothetically, it now seems that we have to throw two exceptions.
It seems pretty unlikely that we will, though. So what happens and what should the code do here?
try { /* init code here */ }
catch (Exception ex)
{
try
{
_DeinitializeEngine();
}
catch (Exception ex2)
{
throw new OCRException("Engine failed to initialize; ALSO failed to deinitialize engine!", ex2);
}
finally
{
throw new OCRException("Engine failed to initialize; failed to initialize license!", ex);
}
}

You shouldn't throw in the Finally block. Instead, use the InnerException to add information in the throw.
Update
What you have to do is to catch and rethrow with the "history" of exception, this is done with InnerException. You can edit it when bulding a new exception. This is a code snippet I just wrote to illustrate the idea that I explain in all the comments below.
static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
principalMethod();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine("Test : " + e.Message);
}
Console.Read();
}
public static void principalMethod()
{
try
{
throw new Exception("Primary");
}
catch (Exception ex1)
{
try
{
methodThatCanCrash();
}
catch
{
throw new Exception("Cannot deinitialize", ex1);
}
}
}
private static void methodThatCanCrash()
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
No need to use double throw with finalize. If you put a break point at the Console.WriteLine(...). You will notice that you have all the exception trace.

If your clean up code is failing and you cannot leave the application in a clean and known state I would let the exception go unhandled (or catch it with the UnhandledException event to log it) then close the application.
Because if you can't handle the first exception, what point is there in catching the second exception?

If I understand your problem correctly, here's what I would have done:
try { /* init code here */ }
catch (Exception ex)
{
// Passing original exception as inner exception
Exception ocrex = new OCRException("Engine failed to initialize", ex);
try
{
_DeinitializeEngine();
}
catch (Exception ex2)
{
// Passing initialization failure as inner exception
ocrex = new OCRException("Failed to deinitialize engine!", ocrex);
}
throw ocrex;
}

You have two possible exception conditions: one in which the first method failed, and one in which both methods failed.
You're already defining your own exception class. So create another (or extend the first) with a RelatedException or PriorException property. When you throw the exception in the second case, save a reference to the first exception in this property.
It's up to the exception handler that catches this exception to figure out what to do with the second exception.