2019-01-22 Tuesday - .NET Exception Handling

A recent question came up within a .NET engineering team regarding exception handling - and wrapping Try/Catch logic around Web API controller logic was proposed. This posting is to organize some resources that offer an alternative approach - and highlights some concerns around possible exception handling anti-patterns.

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/error-handling/exception-handling
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/error-handling/web-api-global-error-handling 
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/error-handling?view=aspnetcore-2.2
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/mvc/controllers/filters?view=aspnetcore-2.2
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/exceptions/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/exceptions/best-practices-for-exceptions

stackoverflow articles of note:

• https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/365427/try-catch-log-rethrow-is-anti-pattern 
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46813434/handling-exceptions-in-a-base-controller-with-asp-net-core-api-controller
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15167927/how-do-i-log-all-exceptions-globally-for-a-c-sharp-mvc4-webapi-app 

 Additional reading: 

• Paper: Studying the Prevalence of Exception Handling Anti-Patter
• https://www.exceptionnotfound.net/the-asp-net-web-api-exception-handling-pipeline-a-guided-tour/ 
• https://code-maze.com/global-error-handling-aspnetcore/
• https://medium.com/@alexyakunin/try-catch-finally-throw-or-exception-handling-101-9f824136b21b
• https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Exception_Handling

Other possibly relevant Microsoft documentation resources to consider:

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/advanced/http-message-handlers 
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.web.http.exceptionresult?view=aspnetcore-2.2
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.web.http.internalservererrorresult?view=aspnetcore-2.2 
• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.aspnetcore.mvc.statuscoderesult?view=aspnetcore-2.2

Potential Github resources:

• https://elmah.github.io/
• https://github.com/elmah/Elmah