How can I improve this exception retry scenario?

Question

I have a web service method I am calling which is 3rd party and outside of my domain. For some reason every now and again the web service fails with a gateway timeout. Its i

Answer 1

You should use recursion (or a loop), and should only retry if you got the error you expected.

For example:

static void TryExecute(Action method, Func retryFilter, int maxRetries) where TException : Exception {
    try {
        method();
    } catch(TException ex) {
        if (maxRetries > 0 && retryFilter(ex))
            TryExecute(method, retryFilter, maxRetries - 1);
        else
            throw;
    }
}

EDIT: With a loop:

static void TryExecute(Action method, Func retryFilter, int maxRetries) where TException : Exception {
    while (true) {
        try {
            method();
            return;
        } catch(TException ex) {
            if (maxRetries > 0 && retryFilter(ex))
                maxRetries--;
            else
                throw;
        }
    }
}

---

You can try to prevent future errors in retryFilter, perhaps by Thread.Sleep.

If the last retry fails, this will throw the last exception.