try/catch + using, right syntax

Question

I prefer the second one. May as well trap errors relating to the creation of the object as well.

Since a using block is just a syntax simplification of a try/finally (MSDN), personally I'd go with the following, though I doubt it's significantly different than your second option:

MyClass myObject = null;

try
{
    myObject = new MyClass();
    //important stuff
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    //handle exception
}
finally
{
    if (myObject is IDisposable)
    {
        myObject.Dispose();
    }
}

It depends. If you are using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), using(...) { try... } will not work correctly if the proxy in using statement is in exception state, i.e. Disposing this proxy will cause another exception.

Personally, I believe in minimal handling approach, i.e. handle only exception you are aware of at the point of execution. In other word, if you know that the initialization of a variable in using may throw a particular exception, I wrap it with try-catch. Similarly, if within using body something may happen, which is not directly related to the variable in using, then I wrap it with another try for that particular exception. I rarely use Exception in my catches.

But I do like IDisposable and using though so I maybe biased.

If your catch statement needs to access the variable declared in a using statement, then inside is your only option.

If your catch statement needs the object referenced in the using before it is disposed, then inside is your only option.

If your catch statement takes an action of unknown duration, like displaying a message to the user, and you would like to dispose of your resources before that happens, then outside is your best option.

Whenever I have a scenerio similar to this, the try-catch block is usually in a different method further up the call stack from the using. It is not typical for a method to know how to handle exceptions that occur within it like this.

So my general recomendation is outside—way outside.

private void saveButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
    try
    {
        SaveFile(myFile); // The using statement will appear somewhere in here.
    }
    catch (IOException ex)
    {
        MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
    }
}

Both are valid syntax. It really comes down to what you want to do: if you want to catch errors relating to creating/disposing the object, use the second. If not, use the first.