How Can I Avoid Using Exceptions for Flow Control?

Question

I have been assigned a project to develop a set of classes that act as an interface to a storage system. A requirement is that the class support a get method with the follo

Answer 1

Looking for an object that does not exist seems like an exceptional case to me. Coupled with a method that allows a caller to determine if an object exists, I think it would be ok to throw the exception when it doesn't.

public bool exists( String key ) { ... }

Caller could do:

if (exists(key)) {
   CustomObject modified = get(key,DateTime.Today.AddDays(-1));
   if (modified != null) { ... }
}

or

try {
    CustomObject modified = get(key,DateTime.Today.AddDays(-1));
}
catch (NotFoundException) { ... }