ASP.NET Cookbook

7.4. Displaying User-Friendly Error Messages

Problem

You want the event-handling methods described in this chapter to write detailed messages to an error log for use in debugging your application, but you want to display friendly, informative messages to the user.

Solution

Create a custom exception class that includes a property to hold the user-friendly message, and then, when an error occurs, instantiate a new exception object of the custom type in the Catch block of your error-handling code, set the property of the exception to the desired message, and then throw the new exception.

Use the .NET language of your choice to create the custom exception class by deriving from System.ApplicationException and adding a property to hold the user-friendly message, giving it a name like userFriendlyMessage.

In the code-behind for the ASP.NET pages of your application that need to perform error handling, use the .NET language of your choice to:

1. In the Catch block of methods where informative messages are useful, instantiate a new exception object of your custom class type, set the userFriendlyMessage property to the desired message, and then throw the new exception.

2. In the Application_Error event handler, write the detailed information provided by the exception object to the event log and then display the message contained in the userFriendlyMessage property of the exception on a common error message page.

The custom exception class we’ve created to demonstrate this solution is shown in Example ...