Exception filters give developers the ability to add a condition (in the form of a boolean expression) to a catch block, allowing the catch to execute only if the condition evaluates to true.

Exception filters allow the propagation of debug information in the original exception, where as using an if statement inside a catch block and re-throwing the exception stops the propagation of debug information in the original exception. With exception filters, the exception continues to propagate upwards in the call stack unless the condition is met. As a result, exception filters make the debugging experience much easier. Instead of stopping on the throw statement, the debugger will stop on the statement throwing the exception, with the current state and all local variables preserved. Crash dumps are affected in a similar way.

Exception filters have been supported by the CLR since the beginning and they’ve been accessible from VB.NET and F# for over a decade by exposing a part of the CLR’s exception handling model. Only after the release of C# 6.0 has the functionality also been available for C# developers.

Using exception filters

Exception filters are utilized by appending a when clause to the catch expression. It is possible to use any expression returning a bool in a when clause (except await). The declared Exception variable ex is accessible from within the when clause:

var SqlErrorToIgnore = 123;
try
{
    DoSQLOperations();
}
catch (SqlException ex) when (ex.Number != SqlErrorToIgnore)
{
    throw new Exception("An error occurred accessing the database", ex);
}

Multiple catch blocks with when clauses may be combined. The first when clause returning true will cause the exception to be caught. Its catch block will be entered, while the other catch clauses will be ignored (their when clauses won’t be evaluated). For example:

try
{ ... }
catch (Exception ex) when (someCondition) //If someCondition evaluates to true,
                                          //the rest of the catches are ignored.
{ ... }
catch (NotImplementedException ex) when (someMethod()) //someMethod() will only run if
                                                       //someCondition evaluates to false
{ ... }
catch(Exception ex) // If both when clauses evaluate to false
{ ... }

Risky when clause

Caution

It can be risky to use exception filters: when an Exception is thrown from within the when clause, the Exception from the when clause is ignored and is treated as false. This approach allows developers to write when clause without taking care of invalid cases.

The following example illustrates such a scenario:

public static void Main()
{
    int a = 7;
    int b = 0;
    try
    {
        DoSomethingThatMightFail();
    }
    catch (Exception ex) when (a / b == 0)
    {
        // This block is never reached because a / b throws an ignored
        // DivideByZeroException which is treated as false.
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        // This block is reached since the DivideByZeroException in the 
        // previous when clause is ignored.
    }
}

public static void DoSomethingThatMightFail()
{
    // This will always throw an ArgumentNullException.
    Type.GetType(null);
}

View Demo

Note that exception filters avoid the confusing line number problems associated with using throw when failing code is within the same function. For example in this case the line number is reported as 6 instead of 3:

1. int a = 0, b = 0;
2. try {
3.     int c = a / b;
4. }
5. catch (DivideByZeroException) {
6.     throw;
7. }

The exception line number is reported as 6 because the error was caught and re-thrown with the throw statement on line 6.

The same does not happen with exception filters: