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

If there is an unhandled exception inside a catch handler block, the finally block gets called exactly zero times

  static void Main(string[] args)
  {
     try
     {
        Console.WriteLine("in the try");
        int d = 0;
        int k = 0 / d;
     }
     catch (Exception e)
     {
        Console.WriteLine("in the catch");
        throw;
     }
     finally
     {
        Console.WriteLine("In the finally");
     }
  }

Output:

C:\users\administrator\documents\TestExceptionNesting\bin\Release>TestExceptionNesting.exe

in the try

in the catch

Unhandled Exception: System.DivideByZeroException: Attempted to divide by zero. at TestExceptionNesting.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\users\administrator\documents\TestExceptionNesting\TestExceptionNesting.cs:line 22

C:\users\administrator\documents\TestExceptionNesting\bin\release>

I got asked this question today at an interview and the interviewer kept going back "are you sure the finally doesn't get called?" I was uncertain if it was meant a trick question or the interviewer had something else in mind and wrote the wrong code for me to debug so I came home and tried it (build and run, no debugger interaction), just to put my mind at rest.