.NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 1: Base Class Library and Extended Numerics Library

Exceptions

In order to provide a common, rich, easily programmed and difficult to ignore way of signaling and handling errors, the .NET Framework supports structured exception handling. A caller places an exception handler on the stack at the point at which he wants to catch the error, using the try–catch syntax of his programming language. A called function wanting to signal an error creates an object of class System.Exception (or one derived from it) containing information about the error and throws it. The CLR searches up the call stack until it finds a handler for the type of exception that was thrown, at which time the stack is unwound and control transferred to the catch block, which contains the error-handling code.

The class System.Exception ...