EntLib 4.0: Exception Handling Application Block

Question

I'm just starting to use the Enterprise Library Exception Handling block.

It seems a little cumbersome.

Do I really have to do

 try
 {
     //Do something with a DirectoryInfo object
 }
 catch(DirectoryNotFoundException ex)
 {
   bool rethrow = ExceptionPolicy.Handle(ex, _exceptionPolicyName);

   if(rethrow)
        throw;
 }

Everywhere I want to handle exceptions?

Or should I just wrap the top level in

 try
 {
     //Entrypoint code
 }
 catch(Exception ex)
 {
   bool rethrow = ExceptionPolicy.Handle(ex, _exceptionPolicyName);

   if(rethrow)
        throw;
 }

I was under the impression I could aspect this on with attributes?

Answer 1

How many places do you need to handle exceptions?

This Application Block is mainly used for handling exceptions on the boundaries of layers. For instance, the top-level code of your Data Access Layer might use this so you can configure whether and how to log DAL exceptions, whether to wrap a non-DAL exception, etc. But your private, inner methods should not handle exceptions at all.

And no, EAL doesn't do attributes.