We have an interface IPoller for which we have various implementations. We have a process that will take an IPoller and start it in a separate thread. I'm trying to come up with a generic way of providing exception handling for any IPollers which don't do it themselves.
My original thinking was to create an implementation of IPoller that would accept an IPoller and just provide some logging functionality. The question I ran into though is how would I provide this error handling? If I have IPoller.Start() which is the target for the Thread is that where the exception will occur? Or is there something on the thread itself I can hook into?
Something like:
Thread thread = new Thread(delegate() {
try
{
MyIPoller.Start();
}
catch(ThreadAbortException)
{
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
//handle
}
finally
{
}
});
This will ensure the exception doesn't make it to the top of the thread.
You should catch the exception at the method you use at the top of the thread, and do the logging from there.
An unhandled exception (at the top of a thread) will (in 2.0 onwards) kill your process. Not good.
i.e. whatever method you pass to Thread.Start
(etc) should have a try
/catch
, and do something useful in the catch
(logging, perhaps graceful shutdown, etc).
To achieve this, you could use:
- static logging methods
- captured variables into the delegate (as an anonymous method)
- expose your method on an instance that already knows about the logger
In .NET 4.0+ you should use Tasks instead of threads. Here's a nice article on exception handling in Task Parallel Library
Take a look at AppDomain.UnhandledException, it will help you at least log those exceptions that you are not handling, and in some cases close down "nicely":
This event provides notification of
uncaught exceptions. It allows the
application to log information about
the exception before the system
default handler reports the exception
to the user and terminates the
application. If sufficient information
about the state of the application is
available, other actions may be
undertaken — such as saving program
data for later recovery. Caution is
advised, because program data can
become corrupted when exceptions are
not handled.
Have a look at
Appdomain.FirstChanceException event
It tells you moment any exception occurs and CLR is looking for stack trace. Also event args tell which type of exception. You can consider it as the central place for logging.