Using the Exception Handling Block in Enterprise Library 3.0

y default, the .NET Framework includes a number of classes that convey information about exceptions generated by the application. Whenever an error occurs in a .NET application, the .NET Framework catches it and raises the associated exception to the application. It is up to the application to catch that exception, process it, and inform users of the error condition in a graceful manner. But not all layers of an application are directly in contact with users. That implies that you might want to have different exception handling strategies for different application layers. Building an effective strategy for dealing with errors in various application layers requires you to write a considerable amount of reusable boilerplate code—which makes exception handling an ideal topic for a reusable library.

To fill that need, the "patterns & practices" team at Microsoft created the Exception Handling block as an integral component of Enterprise Library 3.0. Here, you'll see examples of using it with Visual Studio to write robust and fault-tolerant .NET applications.