Better way for try-catch only in Release?

Question

When I want to debug my application that throws exception, that means I need to disable the try-catch block like this:

#if !DEBUG
                try
                {
#endif
                    // Do something
#if !DEBUG
                }
                catch (ArgumentException)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Something wrong");
                }
#endif

Note: I know about break on handled exception of Visual Studio, but the downside is it break at every exception of the same type. EDIT to rephrase my meaning: For example, function A and B both throws NullReferenceException, but I only want to check when A throws it, but not B (handled NulRefExc in B is already correct).

One may ask why I need that. Usually I run ASP.NET MVC code without Debugging (but still in Debug build, which has DEBUG variable), and throwing exception is really great instead of catching it (in dev mode only, of course), because the error page with stack trace will be shown, so we can track the error much quicker.

Is there any cleaner way to write the upper code?

Answer 1

Since C# 6 you also may use exception filters for that:

try
{
    // Do something
}
catch (ArgumentException) when (!Env.Debugging)
{
    // Handle the exception
}

Having Env.Debugging defined somewhere as

public static class Env
{
#if DEBUG
    public static readonly bool Debugging = true;
#else
    public static readonly bool Debugging = false;
#endif
}

As an additional bonus you'll get original call stack in the exception object when it is not caught (due to when test failed, ie in debug). With a re-thrown exception you would have to provide the original exception as the inner one and make some extra effort to deal with it.

This approach also allows to enable/disable exception handling based on other condition, a web.config setting for example, which would allow you to swicth without recompilation:

public static class Env
{
    public static readonly bool Debugging =
      Convert.ToBoolean(WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Debugging"]);
}

Answer 2

just an idea leave the try catch

then do

 catch (ArgumentException)
                {
#if DEBUG
                throw SomeCustomExceptionYouCatchWith_break_on_handled_exception();
#endif
                    Console.WriteLine("Something wrong");
                }

Answer 3

Two things:

1. How many places are you going to the put the #if DEBUG ?
2. Console.WriteLine is meaningless in ASP.NET. See this for more.

What you should be doing is logging the error to either a database, a file or something. This will avoid all the #if DEBUG s all over the code. Please see this for more on logging.

This has additional benefits:

1. You will be able to see what your errors look like so when you go into production you will get the same information. If you do not have enough information, in the log, during development, it gives you a chance to change the error message and ensure the stack trace is there. This will be helpful when you go into production because now you have better errors.
2. Your code is cleaner