How to handle specific HttpClient errors

Question

When the HttpClient throws an exception trying to get a page it returns a HttpRequestException . This exception doesn't really have anything to categorize the error apart from the message so the only way i can see to handle errors is like so:

try
{
    HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync("http://www.example.com/");
    // ...
}
catch (HttpRequestException e)
{
    if(e.Message == "Name or service not known")
    {
       HandleNotKnown();
       return;
    }
    
    if(e.Message == "Some other specific message")
    {
       HandleOtherError();
       return;
    }
    
    // ... etc
}

I don't like doing this because I feel like at some point the error text could change in an update and break my code.

Is there a better way to handle specific errors with HttpClient?

Answer 1

The HttpRequestException inherits from Exception and so it has the InnerException property

Gets the Exception instance that caused the current exception.

So check this Exception for more details.