Question

So what is better? To use construction like this:

if (File.Exist(fileName))
{
    // do something with file...
}

of just

try 
{
    // do something with file.
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
}

Does it cost a lot to use method File.Exist()?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Exceptions are not supposed to be used to handle the flow of your application, the idea is to avoid exceptions and not to expect them as normal part of the execution flow.

For 99.999% of the applications, if there is any performance difference, won’t be appreciable. If the file should be there and not finding is a exceptional scenario, you could use the try catch block otherwise I’d say you should go for the File.Exist approach.