Question

I know how to use try-catch-finally. However I do not get the advance of using finally as I always can place the code after the try-catch block.
Is there any clear example?

Answer 1

Update: This is actually not a great answer. On the other hand, maybe it is a good answer because it illustrates a perfect example of finally succeeding where a developer (i.e., me) might fail to ensure cleanup properly. In the below code, consider the scenario where an exception other than SpecificException is thrown. Then the first example will still perform cleanup, while the second will not, even though the developer may think “I caught the exception and handled it, so surely the subsequent code will run.”

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Everybody’s giving reasons to use try/finally without a catch. It can still make sense to do so with a catch, even if you’re throwing an exception. Consider the case* where you want to return a value.

try
{
    DoSomethingTricky();
    return true;
}
catch (SpecificException ex)
{
    LogException(ex);
    return false;
}
finally
{
    DoImportantCleanup();
}

The alternative to the above without a finally is (in my opinion) somewhat less readable:

bool success;

try
{
    DoSomethingTricky();
    success = true;
}
catch (SpecificException ex)
{
    LogException(ex);
    success = false;
}

DoImportantCleanup();
return success;

_{*I do think a better example of try/catch/finally is when the exception is re-thrown (using throw, not throw ex—but that’s another topic) in the catch block, and so the finally is necessary as without it code after the try/catch would not run. This is typically accomplished with a using statement on an IDisposable resource, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the cleanup is not specifically a Dispose call (or is more than just a Dispose call).}