Exception.Message vs. Exception.ToString()

Provided by Dave Juth, Senior Systems Architect

Exception.Message and Exception.ToString() are similar, but you should determine which to use based on how much exception information you need:

• Exception.Message contains a simple description of the exception (e.g. "Object reference not set...").
• Exception.ToString() contains a description of the exception along with a complete stack trace.

In order to debug an application, seeing the stack trace is critical. This is useful for logging exceptions in an application. If you need to simply show the user information about the exception at run-time, Exception.Message is more appropriate.