In C#, how do I know which exceptions to catch?

Question

I\'ve gotten in the habit of using a general catch statement and I handle those exceptions in a general manner. Is this bad practice? If so, how do I know which specific exc

Answer 1

Except in rare situations, I generally think of catch blocks as a code smell.

Prevent exceptions being thrown at all by checking for conditions beforehand. For example, if reading from a file, use classes in System.IO to check if the file exists, rather than using a catch block to handle the situation where the file doesn't exist.

Catch blocks should not form part of your application logic.