What is good C# coding style for catching SQLException and retrying

Question

I have a method that calls a SQLServer function to perform a free text search against a table. That function will occasionally on the first call result in a SQLException: \"

Answer 1

I'd change the exception handling to only retry on certain errors:

• 1204, 1205 deadlocks
• -2 timeout
• -1 connection broken

These are the basic "retryable" errors

catch (SqlException ex)
{
    if !(ex.Number == 1205 || ex.Number == 1204 || ... )
    {
        throw
    }
    retryCount++;
    if (retryCount > MAX_RETRY) throw;
}

Edit, I clean forgot about waits so you don't hammer the SQL box:

• Add a 500 ms wait on deadlock
• Add a 5 sec delay on timeout

Edit 2:

I'm a Developer DBA, don't do much C#. My answer was to correct exception processing for the calls...

Answer 2

Pull the relevant code out into its own method, then use recursion.

Pseudo-code:

try
{
    doDatabaseCall();
}
catch (exception e)
{
    //Check exception object to confirm its the error you've been experiencing as opposed to the server being offline.
    doDatabaseCall();
}