Equivalent to Exit Try

Mukunda Dhakate

I want to do the following job

try
{
       if(......)
              Exit Try                         //this will do in VB but not in C#

        //do stuff
       if(............)
                 Exit Try

        //do stuff
}
catch()
{
}

I have tried using do{       }while(false); and using Switch - Case.
Is there any other way to do this.
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4 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Tom9y ago
To all the commenters wondering why there's a need for an "exit try" or assuming that need could only arise out of "'bad practice'", here's why: When the result (whether non-"Exception" failure or a/the successful result) of a block of code can already be determined before "'significant'" subsequent code needs to be executed, it is "'significant'"ly : a) less error-prone and b) more readable and c) therefore more maintainable to "exit" that block of code as soon as that result is known vs. making sure all subsequent code is enclosed in (possibly nested) "else if"'s blocks and/or declaring & setting flags whose sole purpose is to skip unneeded subsequent code. It's to code blocks what "Short Circuit"-ing is to Expressions.

Ex.
"
do
{
try
{
if (validation rule 1 failed)
{
result = failure result;
break;
}
...
if (validation rule N failed)
{
result = failure result;
break;
}
if (non-"switch"-able use case 1)
{
result = result 1;
break;
}
...
if (non-"switch"-able use case N)
{
result = result N;
break;
}
}
finally
{
result = (perform additional transformation on intermediate result set above)
secondary result = (value based on primary "result")
}
}
while (false);
"
Alan19y ago
It's worth adding that, if you have a Finally clause, Exit Try will jump to that rather than jumping out of the Try statement altogether.

I agree with Mike that we don't really need this construct in C#, as you can always code around it. If you find yourself in a deeply nested loop within the try block, without any further possibility of an exception being thrown, then you can always use a 'goto label' which is all that Exit Try really is under the hood.

Another adornment which VB's Try statement has but C# lacks is the When filter on the Catch block. Again I've never been able to see much point of this as you can always simulate it by placing an If clause in the Catch block. In fact the only time I've seen it used in VB is where you're catching exceptions based on VB's old error number system.
Mike Gold19y ago
Hi,

I do not believe there is an equivalent to exit try in C# (other than goto label). The reason there is no equivalent is a good one. Don't do it! It's horrible coding practice. It would even be better to throw an exception (instead of exit try) and catch it somewhere and handle the rest in a finally block.

Why is it in VB then? Because early VB programmer's(before .NET) are probably used to having the option of less tidy programming structures, but personally I think it should be removed completely from VB.NET which is supposed to encourage good programming practices . Hey, but that is just me.
Jan Montano19y ago
Hi Mukunda,

Why would you want to exit your try clause? The try clause is there to catch exceptions. What exactly do you want to do? If you just want to control the flow of your program, I think there's a way with if conditions or switch statements. If you could post your code, maybe we could help.

Regards,
Jan