Question

If I’m reading a string from a config file, I’d use a similar approach to the below, in case the string isn’t present in the file being read and an exception results. However, if I want to do the same for a string[] array, I can’t just ‘new it up’ outside the try block because the size is not known.

I can’t new it up in the try block itself. How should it be approached?

string[] logContent; // can't new it up here as don't know the size

                try
                {
                    logContent = File.ReadAllLines(aLogFile);
                }
                catch
                {
                    throw new Exception("LoggerStandard: Specified Logfile exists but could not be read.");
                }

Answer 1

You could initialize it to a default value:

string[] logContent = null; 
try
{
    logContent = File.ReadAllLines(aLogFile);
}
catch
{
    // Be careful with the error message here => there might be other reasons
    // that the ReadAllLines threw an exception
    throw new Exception("LoggerStandard: Specified Logfile exists but could not be read.");
}