When is finally run if you throw an exception from the catch block?

Question

try {
   // Do stuff
}
catch (Exception e) {
   throw;
}
finally {
   // Clean up
}

In the above block when is the finally block called? Before the

Answer 1

After reading all of the answers here it looks like the final answer is it depends:

• If you re-throw an exception within the catch block, and that exception is caught inside of another catch block, everything executes according to the documentation.

• However, if the re-trown exception is unhandled, the finally never executes.

I tested this code sample in VS2010 w/ C# 4.0

static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Example 1: re-throw inside of another try block:");

        try
        {
            Console.WriteLine("--outer try");
            try
            {
                Console.WriteLine("----inner try");
                throw new Exception();
            }
            catch
            {
                Console.WriteLine("----inner catch");
                throw;
            }
            finally
            {
                Console.WriteLine("----inner finally");
            }
        }
        catch
        {
            Console.WriteLine("--outer catch");
            // swallow
        }
        finally
        {
            Console.WriteLine("--outer finally");
        }
        Console.WriteLine("Huzzah!");

        Console.WriteLine();
        Console.WriteLine("Example 2: re-throw outside of another try block:");
        try
        {
            Console.WriteLine("--try");
            throw new Exception();
        }
        catch
        {
            Console.WriteLine("--catch");
            throw;
        }
        finally
        {
            Console.WriteLine("--finally");
        }

        Console.ReadLine();
    }

Here is the output:

Example 1: re-throw inside of another try block:
--outer try
----inner try
----inner catch
----inner finally
--outer catch
--outer finally
Huzzah!

Example 2: re-throw outside of another try block:
--try
--catch

Unhandled Exception: System.Exception: Exception of type 'System.Exception' was thrown.
at ConsoleApplication1.Program.Main() in C:\local source\ConsoleApplication1\Program.cs:line 53