Question

Given the following code:

try
  // code1
  try
  // code2
  catch ex as exception
  end try
  // code3
catch ex as exception
end try

Are there any side effects to naming the two exception variables the same or should they have different names?

Answer 1

Nope, that should be fine. They’re entirely independent variables. At least, that’s the case in C# – I couldn’t say for certain in VB, but I’d be really surprised if there were any side-effects beyond potential confusion when reading the code 🙂

In particular, the two variables have different scopes, as neither is really nested within the block declaring the other – the “inner” one is declared within the outer try block. If you wrote a try/catch block within the catch block then that nested catch block couldn’t reuse the same variable name.