Question

Question: I want to define a global exception handler for unhandled exceptions in my console application. In asp.net, one can define one in global.asax, and in windows applications /services, one can define as below

AppDomain currentDomain = AppDomain.CurrentDomain;
currentDomain.UnhandledException += new UnhandledExceptionEventHandler(MyExceptionHandler);

But how can I define a global exception handler for a console application ?
currentDomain seems not to work (.NET 2.0) ?

Edit:

Argh, stupid mistake.
In VB.NET, one needs to add the “AddHandler” keyword in front of currentDomain, or else one doesn’t see the UnhandledException event in IntelliSense…
That’s because the VB.NET and C# compilers treat event handling differently.

Answer 1

No, that’s the correct way to do it. This worked exactly as it should, something you can work from perhaps:

using System;

class Program {
    static void Main(string[] args) {
        System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.UnhandledException += UnhandledExceptionTrapper;
        throw new Exception("Kaboom");
    }

    static void UnhandledExceptionTrapper(object sender, UnhandledExceptionEventArgs e) {
        Console.WriteLine(e.ExceptionObject.ToString());
        Console.WriteLine("Press Enter to continue");
        Console.ReadLine();
        Environment.Exit(1);
    }
}

Do keep in mind that you cannot catch type and file load exceptions generated by the jitter this way. They happen before your Main() method starts running. Catching those requires delaying the jitter, move the risky code into another method and apply the [MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)] attribute to it.