try and catch

[Sahil Sharma]

Does having 4 to 5 try/catch blocks in a method slows down the execution of the method ?

[Scott Selikoff]

No, unless the exceptions are thrown in the common cases.

The real question I have is why would you ever have a function with 5 try/catch blocks? Are they the same exception? If so, why not group them as one? If they are different they should probably be in separate functions, lest a single function is one long set of try/catch blocks. I could understand one try with 5 different catches, thats perfectly valid.

Also, it is a general practice not to catch Runtime exceptions unless your on the top-most level of a delegate. Finally, if you can avoid throwing exceptions in the first place (for example checking for an object equal to null rather than catching a null exception) it is always preferable to do so since there will be a performance hit if the exception is thrown versus avoiding the exception.
[ November 08, 2005: Message edited by: Scott Selikoff ]

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

No. Throwing exceptions is expensive. But try/catch blocks themselves are essentially free when no exceptions are thrown.