Why is try {…} finally {…} good; try {…} catch{} bad?

Question

I have seen people say that it is bad form to use catch with no arguments, especially if that catch doesn\'t do anything:

StreamReader reader=new  StreamRead         


        

Answer 1

Because when that one single line throws an exception, you wouldn't know it.

With the first block of code, the exception will simply be absorbed, the program will continue to execute even when the state of the program might be wrong.

With the second block, the exception will be thrown and bubbles up but the reader.Close() is still guaranteed to run.

If an exception is not expected, then don't put a try..catch block just so, it'll be hard to debug later when the program went into a bad state and you don't have an idea why.