Getting all messages from InnerException(s)?

Question

Is there any way to write a LINQ style \"short hand\" code for walking to all levels of InnerException(s) of Exception thrown? I would prefer to write it in place instead of

Answer 1

You don't need extension methods or recursive calls:

try {
  // Code that throws exception
}
catch (Exception e)
{
  var messages = new List<string>();
  do
  {
    messages.Add(e.Message);
    e = e.InnerException;
  }
  while (e != null) ;
  var message = string.Join(" - ", messages);
}

Answer 2

I don't think so, exception is not an IEnumerable so you can't perform a linq query against one on its own.

An extension method to return the inner exceptions would work like this

public static class ExceptionExtensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<Exception> InnerExceptions(this Exception exception)
    {
        Exception ex = exception;

        while (ex != null)
        {
            yield return ex;
            ex = ex.InnerException;
        }
    }
}

you could then append all the messages using a linq query like this:

var allMessageText = string.Concat(exception.InnerExceptions().Select(e => e.Message + ","));

Answer 3

Unfortunately LINQ doesn't offer methods that could process hierarchical structures, only collections.

I actually have some extension methods that could help do this. I don't have the exact code in hand but they're something like this:

// all error checking left out for brevity

// a.k.a., linked list style enumerator
public static IEnumerable<TSource> FromHierarchy<TSource>(
    this TSource source,
    Func<TSource, TSource> nextItem,
    Func<TSource, bool> canContinue)
{
    for (var current = source; canContinue(current); current = nextItem(current))
    {
        yield return current;
    }
}

public static IEnumerable<TSource> FromHierarchy<TSource>(
    this TSource source,
    Func<TSource, TSource> nextItem)
    where TSource : class
{
    return FromHierarchy(source, nextItem, s => s != null);
}

Then in this case you could do this to enumerate through the exceptions:

public static string GetaAllMessages(this Exception exception)
{
    var messages = exception.FromHierarchy(ex => ex.InnerException)
        .Select(ex => ex.Message);
    return String.Join(Environment.NewLine, messages);
}

Answer 4

Most solutions presended here have the following implementation errors:

• handle null exceptions
• handle the inner exceptions of AggregateException
• define a max depth for recurse inner exceptions (ie. with circular dependencies)

A better implementation is this here:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

public static string AggregateMessages(this Exception ex) =>
    ex.GetInnerExceptions()
        .Aggregate(
            new StringBuilder(),
            (sb, e) => sb.AppendLine(e.Message),
            sb => sb.ToString());

public static IEnumerable<Exception> GetInnerExceptions(this Exception ex, int maxDepth = 5)
{
    if (ex == null || maxDepth <= 0)
    {
        yield break;
    }

    yield return ex;

    if (ex is AggregateException ax)
    {
        foreach(var i in ax.InnerExceptions.SelectMany(ie => GetInnerExceptions(ie, maxDepth - 1)))
            yield return i;
    }

    foreach (var i in GetInnerExceptions(ex.InnerException, maxDepth - 1))
        yield return i;
}

Example usage:

try
{
    // ...
}
catch(Exception e)
{
    Log.Error(e, e.AggregateMessages());
}

Answer 5

public static class ExceptionExtensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<Exception> GetAllExceptions(this Exception ex)
    {
        Exception currentEx = ex;
        yield return currentEx;
        while (currentEx.InnerException != null)
        {
            currentEx = currentEx.InnerException;
            yield return currentEx;
        }
    }

    public static IEnumerable<string> GetAllExceptionAsString(this Exception ex)
    {            
        Exception currentEx = ex;
        yield return currentEx.ToString();
        while (currentEx.InnerException != null)
        {
            currentEx = currentEx.InnerException;
            yield return currentEx.ToString();
        }            
    }

    public static IEnumerable<string> GetAllExceptionMessages(this Exception ex)
    {
        Exception currentEx = ex;
        yield return currentEx.Message;
        while (currentEx.InnerException != null)
        {
            currentEx = currentEx.InnerException;
            yield return currentEx.Message;
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

For those, who are waiting for a one-liner.

exc.ToString();

This will go through all your inner exceptions and return all messages, the downside is that it will also contain stack traces, etc.