Is there a way to throw custom exception without Exception class

Question

Is there any way in C# (i.e. in .NET) to throw a custom exception but without writing all the code to define your own exception class derived from Exception?

I am thinking something similar you have for example in Oracle PL/SQL where you can simply write

raise_application_error(-20001, 'An arbitary error message'); 

at any place.

Answer 1

throw new Exception("A custom message for an application specific exception"); 

Not good enough?

You could also throw a more specific exception if it's relevant. For example,

throw new AuthenticationException("Message here"); 

or

throw new FileNotFoundException("I couldn't find your file!"); 

could work.

Note that you should probably not throw new ApplicationException(), per MSDN.

The major draw back of not customizing Exception is that it will be more difficult for callers to catch - they won't know if this was a general exception or one that's specific to your code without doing some funky inspection on the exception.Message property. You could do something as simple as this:

public class MyException : Exception {     MyException(int severity, string message) : base(message)     {         // do whatever you want with severity     } } 

to avoid that.

Update: Visual Studio 2015 now offers some automatic implementation of Exception extension classes - if you open the Quick Actions and Refactoring Menu with the cursor on the : Exception, just tell it to "Generate All Constructors".