Try Catch This

Errors. They happen. But sometimes you can see them coming. And you want to be prepared. Maybe a deserializing some json to an object model might fail. Then you’d want to try a slightly one. If that one fails, maybe you’d call it quits.

  try
  {
      var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeObject>(json);
  }
  catch (JsonSerializationException)
  {
      var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeOtherObject>(json);
  }

Though this is not the type of code I like to write (oh, the trauma of seeing exception in your lines) its unavoidable sometimes. I mean it makes basic sense even from a human perspective, right? If you’re trying to do something and it doesn’t work you try something else before calling it quits.

But here’s the thing though. You must know exactly what might come at you. A really horrible thing to do would be

try
{
    var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeObject>(json);
}
catch (Exception)
{
    var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<SomeOtherObject>(json);
}

Yh that’s not it at all. You’re basically saying “I don’t know what might happen, but I’ll try to catch it anyway”. That’s not a good idea. You might end up catching something you didn’t expect and then you’d be in a world of pain. You even catch a cold. (I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist)

So catch what you know, and personally, I try not to catch anything at all, except as a last resort.