Why are empty catch blocks a bad idea? [closed]

Answer 1

It's probably never the right thing because you're silently passing every possible exception. If there's a specific exception you're expecting, then you should test for it, rethrow if it's not your exception.

try
{
    // Do some processing.
}
catch (FileNotFound fnf)
{
    HandleFileNotFound(fnf);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    if (!IsGenericButExpected(e))
        throw;
}

public bool IsGenericButExpected(Exception exception)
{
    var expected = false;
    if (exception.Message == "some expected message")
    {
        // Handle gracefully ... ie. log or something.
        expected = true;
    }

    return expected;
}