What do I do with my exceptions in asp.net?

Question

I'm working on an ASP.NET MVC application and just getting to error handling. Help me solve the issue of getting the error message back to the user.

I have a controller:

    [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
    public ActionResult Show(string callNumber)
    {
        ServiceCallService sc = new ServiceCallService();
        return View(sc.GetServiceCallByCallNumber("", callNumber));
    }

a Service:

    public ServiceCall GetServiceCallByCallNumber(string custID, string callNumber)
    {
        ServiceCall sc = new ServiceCall();
        sc = _serviceCallRepository.GetServiceCallByCallNumber(custID, callNumber);
        return sc;
    }

a Repository:

    public ServiceCall GetServiceCallByCallNumber(string custID, string callNumber)
    {
        ServiceCall sc = new ServiceCall();

        try
        {
            LoginToDB();
            sc.CallNumber = "123";
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            logger.error(Server.GetLastError());
        }
        finally
        {
            LogoutFromDB();
        }
        return sc;
    }

Let's say there is a problem in the LoginToDB() method. I am logging the error but how do I get the error message back to the controller and then to the view.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The easiest way are:-

1) To use the build in model validation in ASP.NET MVC Release Canditate 1 (download from asp.net/mvc).

2) Re-throw the exception and catch it in your controller action then pass a nice customized error message to the View to render to the user - pass it using ViewData["error"] or something similar.