Don't use exception for normal program flow!
This might sound like an obvious statement since "exception" doesn't mean "normal" but in .Net, Exceptions are used for things like "Key not found" in a map.
In one of my programs, I was reading in a database table of projects, not all of which I was working with. I thought it was simple enough to simply try and lookup the key in my map and catch the key not found exception, ignoring it and carrying on:
This seemed like the solution with the least code but I didn't appreciate the overhead in generating exceptions, even if they are ignored and the program continues. When I ran this block of code, over 3000 rows, it took about 20 seconds since probably 2900 exceptions would have been thrown. I modified it to check for the key in the map before setting its value and bingo: 1 second!
In one of my programs, I was reading in a database table of projects, not all of which I was working with. I thought it was simple enough to simply try and lookup the key in my map and catch the key not found exception, ignoring it and carrying on:
foreach (DataRow row in ds.Tables[0].Rows)
{
try
{
m_Jobs[Convert.ToInt32(row["projectid"])].ActualLabourDays = hours;
}
catch (Exception)
{
}
}
This seemed like the solution with the least code but I didn't appreciate the overhead in generating exceptions, even if they are ignored and the program continues. When I ran this block of code, over 3000 rows, it took about 20 seconds since probably 2900 exceptions would have been thrown. I modified it to check for the key in the map before setting its value and bingo: 1 second!