Any real-world implications for general catch clause emitting System.Object as type filter?

Question

I recall hearing once that throwing an object of some type other than System.Exception (or those extending it) was technically legal CIL, though C# has no feature to support it. So I was interested to see that the following C# code:

try {
    throw new Exception();
} catch(Exception x) {
    try {
        throw;
    } catch {
        Console.Write("yes");
    }
}

compiles to the following CIL:

  .try
  {
    IL_0000:  newobj     instance void [mscorlib]System.Exception::.ctor()
    IL_0005:  throw
  }  // end .try
  catch [mscorlib]System.Exception 
  {
    IL_0006:  pop
    .try
    {
      IL_0007:  rethrow
    }  // end .try
    catch [mscorlib]System.Object 
    {
      IL_0009:  pop
      IL_000a:  ldstr      "yes"
      IL_000f:  call       void [mscorlib]System.Console::Write(string)
      IL_0014:  leave.s    IL_0016
    }  // end handler
    IL_0016:  leave.s    IL_0018
  }  // end handler

where we see that the nested general catch clause compiles to:

catch [mscorlib]System.Object 

in C#, are there any real-world implications for general catch clause emitting System.Object as type filter instead of System.Exception?

Answer 1

There is a difference pre .NET-2.0. I read about it in the .NET 1.1 days.

It is explained here (I won't copy it). Note that the first answer is wrong and the second is right.

As to whether it is practical or not: No. I guess it was important for obscure interop scenarios.