Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET Programmer's Cookbook

Throw a Custom Exception

Problem

You need to indicate an application-specific error condition to the caller of your code.

Solution

Derive a custom exception object from the System.ApplicationException class, and add the recommended constructors. Use the Throw statement to throw the exception.

Discussion

.NET Framework guidelines suggest that you always use exception objects to indicate error conditions (not return values or another mechanism). If you need to indicate a generic error condition, use one of the existing framework exceptions (such as InvalidCastException, SecurityException, DivideByZeroException, or ArgumentException) with a custom description. If, however, you need to indicate an application-specific error, you should create a custom ...