Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

C# C# Basics (Retired) Perfect Final

Posted by Jerridd Speidel
Jerridd Speidel
805 Points

Challenge Task 2 or 3. Not getting exceptions, what did I do wrong?

On this task I'm supposed to add a catch to restart the loop in case of thrown exceptions with the particular “You must enter a whole number.” as the response. I'm getting no errors yet I'm still getting a "Bummer! Try again!" when I check the work. What should I do?

Program.cs 
using System;

namespace Treehouse.CodeChallenges
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main()
        {

            Console.WriteLine("Enter the number of times to print \"Yay!\": ");

            string number = System.Console.ReadLine();

            while(true)
            {
                try
                {  

                    int input = int.Parse (number);

                    if(input <= 0)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine(+ input + "is not a valid number.");
                        continue;
                    }

                    int count_total_yay = 0;

                    count_total_yay = count_total_yay + input;

                    while(input > 1)
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Yay!");
                        input--;
                    }
                    System.Console.WriteLine("Total Yay! {0}!", count_total_yay);
                    break;
                }

                catch(System.FormatException)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("You must enter a whole number.");
                    continue;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

:point_right: Your program "works", but deviates from the instructions.

This is a great example of how something that works (will compile an run) might not be what was asked for (satisfies the requirements). This has been a topic of many previous questions, but I'll repost the info here:

People often over-think this one and get too creative, and their answer is rejected for a variety of reasons (some which don't seem to make any sense).

Here are the secret "rules" you must follow for success on this one:

  • Your program must ask for and accept input ONE TIME ONLY
  • If the input validates, your program will perform exactly as in Task 1
  • If the input does not validate, it will print the error message and exit
  • Validation must be done by exception catching. There are other perfectly good methods that can be used for validation, but they will not pass this challenge

It looks like you have an extra loop that violates items 1 and 3. An exception should end the program, there was no instruction to "restart the loop".