Menu
So, I know that try/catch does add some overhead and therefore isn't a good way of controlling process flow, but where does this overhead come from and what is it's actual impact?
682
There has to be an overhead for try/catch blocks so that the CLR can handle the exceptions. C# runs on the . NET CLR(a virtual machine).
The try-except statement is a Microsoft extension to the C language that enables applications to gain control of a program when events that normally terminate execution occur. Such events are called exceptions, and the mechanism that deals with exceptions is called structured exception handling.
Using try catch adds performance cost, but it isn't a major performance cost. Isn't it best to use try catch block as much as possible? No, it is best to use try catch block when makes sense. The performance cost depends on which compiler you use.
The try-catch statement consists of a try block followed by one or more catch clauses, which specify handlers for different exceptions. When an exception is thrown, the common language runtime (CLR) looks for the catch statement that handles this exception.
Three points to make here:
Firstly, there is little or NO performance penalty in actually having try-catch blocks in your code. This should not be a consideration when trying to avoid having them in your application. The performance hit only comes into play when an exception is thrown.
When an exception is thrown in addition to the stack unwinding operations etc that take place which others have mentioned you should be aware that a whole bunch of runtime/reflection related stuff happens in order to populate the members of the exception class such as the stack trace object and the various type members etc.
I believe that this is one of the reasons why the general advice if you are going to rethrow the exception is to just throw; rather than throw the exception again or construct a new one as in those cases all of that stack information is regathered whereas in the simple throw it is all preserved.
172
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
