catch/rethrow of Exception leads to seemingly inappropriate messages

If you catch Exception just to try to do some logging or something, and then rethrow it, you get several messages from Exceptional, none of which seem terribly appropriate in this particular type of usage.

Additionally, and I think more importantly, you can’t suppress them. But I’ll open that up as another ticket.

Example:

    public void Blah()
    {
        try
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Doing something");
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Oh no! " + e.Message);
            throw;
        }

That gets:

(1) Usage of catch-all clauses is not recommended (2) Exception ‘Exception’ is not documented (3) Throwing ‘System.Exception’ is not recommended

[cmeeren]

Referring to the OPs list, my (admittedly not that experienced) opinion is this:

(1) Usage of catch-all clauses is not recommended

This should not be shown as long as you re-throw using throw;, which means the exception will continue to propagate upwards.

(2) Exception ‘Exception’ is not documented

This should be shown, since you are, potentially, throwing (or passing on) any type of exception, including System.Expection.

(3) Throwing ‘System.Exception’ is not recommended

This should not be shown, since (correct me if I’m wrong) by using throw; you’re not really throwing Exception, you’re passing on whatever exception comes your way. And if that happens to be System.Exception, then this catch-rethrow block is not where the error is, and thus not where the warning should be shown.

[cmeeren]

For point 1, one could argue that we are not really catching the exception (I think that is your point, right?);

Correct.