Beginning Visual C# 2010

Chapter 7. Debugging and Error Handling

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER

• Debugging methods available in the IDE

• Error-handling techniques available in C#

So far this book has covered all the basics of simple programming in C#. Before you move on to object-oriented programming in the next part, you need to look at debugging and error handling in C# code.

Errors in code are something that will always be with you. No matter how good a programmer is, problems will always slip through, and part of being a good programmer is realizing this and being prepared to deal with it. Of course, some problems are minor and don't affect the execution of an application, such as a spelling mistake on a button, but glaring errors are also possible, including those that cause applications to fail completely (usually known as fatal errors). Fatal errors include simple errors in code that prevent compilation (syntax errors), or more serious problems that occur only at runtime. Some errors are subtle. Perhaps your application fails to add a record to a database because a requested field is missing, or adds a record with the wrong data in other restricted circumstances. Errors such as these, where application logic is in some way flawed, are known as semantic errors, or logic errors.

Often, you won't know about these subtle errors until a user of your application complains that something isn't working properly. This leaves you with the task of tracing through your code to find out what's happening and fixing ...