What are best practices for exception handling?
💡 Concept: Exception Handling Best Practices
Exception handling is critical for building resilient applications. Best practices ensure your code gracefully handles errors without crashing and maintains readability and maintainability.
📘 Quick Intro
Use structured try-catch-finally blocks, avoid swallowing exceptions silently, and create meaningful custom exceptions when needed.
🧠 Analogy
Think of exception handling like a safety net in a trapeze act — it catches errors before they cause a crash, allowing the show to continue safely.
🔧 Technical Explanation
- 🔄 Always catch specific exceptions instead of general ones.
- 📝 Log exceptions with sufficient context for debugging.
- ♻️ Use finally blocks to release resources.
- 🚫 Avoid empty catch blocks that swallow exceptions.
- 🛠️ Create custom exceptions to represent domain-specific errors.
🎯 Use Cases
- ✅ Graceful error recovery in UI applications.
- ✅ Logging and monitoring errors in server applications.
- ✅ Validating input and throwing meaningful exceptions.
- ✅ Propagating exceptions properly for layered architectures.
💻 Code Example
try {
// Code that may throw exception
var number = int.Parse(input);
}
catch (FormatException ex) {
Console.WriteLine(""Invalid number format: "" + ex.Message);
// Log exception here
}
finally {
Console.WriteLine(""Execution completed."");
}
❓ Interview Q&A
Q1: Why catch specific exceptions?
A: To handle errors appropriately and avoid masking issues.
Q2: What is the purpose of finally?
A: To release resources regardless of success or failure.
Q3: Why avoid empty catch blocks?
A: They hide bugs and complicate debugging.
Q4: What is a custom exception?
A: An exception that represents application-specific errors.
Q5: How should exceptions be logged?
A: With detailed context and stack trace.
Q6: When to rethrow exceptions?
A: When the caller needs to handle them further.
Q7: Can you catch multiple exceptions?
A: Yes, with multiple catch blocks.
Q8: What is exception propagation?
A: Passing exceptions up the call stack.
Q9: Is exception handling costly?
A: It can be, so avoid using exceptions for control flow.
Q10: How to ensure application stability?
A: Proper exception handling and logging.
📝 MCQs
Q1. Why catch specific exceptions?
- Ignore all errors
- Handle errors properly
- Catch generic exceptions
- Swallow exceptions
Q2. What does finally do?
- Ignores errors
- Releases resources
- Throws exceptions
- Logs errors
Q3. Why avoid empty catch blocks?
- Hide bugs
- Improve performance
- Catch all errors
- None
Q4. What is a custom exception?
- System errors
- App-specific errors
- Unhandled errors
- Debug info
Q5. How to log exceptions?
- Ignore logs
- With context
- Only messages
- No logging
Q6. When to rethrow exceptions?
- Never
- When caller handles
- Always
- Randomly
Q7. Can you catch multiple exceptions?
- No
- Yes
- Sometimes
- No idea
Q8. What is exception propagation?
- Ignoring errors
- Passing up call stack
- Logging errors
- Swallowing exceptions
Q9. Is exception handling costly?
- No
- Avoid for control flow
- Always costly
- Cheap
Q10. How to ensure app stability?
- Ignore errors
- Proper handling and logging
- No exceptions
- Crash recovery
💡 Bonus Insight
Effective exception handling improves application robustness and provides better user experiences by preventing crashes and enabling diagnostics.
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