Article
11/18/2011

OverflowException Class

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The exception that is thrown when an arithmetic, casting, or conversion operation in a checked context results in an overflow.

Inheritance Hierarchy

System.Object
  System.Exception
    System.SystemException
      System.ArithmeticException
        System.OverflowException

Namespace: System
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
<ComVisibleAttribute(True)> _
Public Class OverflowException _
    Inherits ArithmeticException

[ComVisibleAttribute(true)]
public class OverflowException : ArithmeticException

The OverflowException type exposes the following members.

Constructors

	Name	Description
	OverflowException()	Initializes a new instance of the OverflowException class.
	OverflowException(String)	Initializes a new instance of the OverflowException class with a specified error message.
	OverflowException(String, Exception)	Initializes a new instance of the OverflowException class with a specified error message and a reference to the inner exception that is the cause of this exception.

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Properties

	Name	Description
	Data	Gets a collection of key/value pairs that provide additional user-defined information about the exception. (Inherited from Exception.)
	HResult	Gets or sets HRESULT, a coded numerical value that is assigned to a specific exception. (Inherited from Exception.)
	InnerException	Gets the Exception instance that caused the current exception. (Inherited from Exception.)
	Message	Gets a message that describes the current exception. (Inherited from Exception.)
	StackTrace	Gets a string representation of the frames on the call stack at the time the current exception was thrown. (Inherited from Exception.)

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Methods

	Name	Description
	Equals(Object)	Determines whether the specified Object is equal to the current Object. (Inherited from Object.)
	Finalize	Allows an object to try to free resources and perform other cleanup operations before the Object is reclaimed by garbage collection. (Inherited from Object.)
	GetBaseException	When overridden in a derived class, returns the Exception that is the root cause of one or more subsequent exceptions. (Inherited from Exception.)
	GetHashCode	Serves as a hash function for a particular type. (Inherited from Object.)
	GetType	Gets the runtime type of the current instance. (Inherited from Exception.)
	MemberwiseClone	Creates a shallow copy of the current Object. (Inherited from Object.)
	ToString	Creates and returns a string representation of the current exception. (Inherited from Exception.)

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Remarks

An OverflowException is thrown at run time under the following conditions:

An arithmetic operation produces a result that is outside the range of the data type returned by the operation. The following example illustrates the OverflowException that is thrown by a multiplication operation that overflows the bounds of the Int32 type.
A casting or conversion operation attempts to perform a narrowing conversion, and the value of the source data type is outside the range of the target data type. The following example illustrates the OverflowException that is thrown by the attempt to convert a large unsigned byte value to a signed byte value.

In each case, the result of the operation is a value that is less than the MinValue property or greater than the MaxValue property of the data type that results from the operation.

For the arithmetic, casting, or conversion operation to throw an OverflowException, the operation must occur in a checked context. By default, arithmetic operations and overflows in Visual Basic are checked; in C#, they are not. If the operation occurs in an unchecked context, the result is truncated by discarding any high-order bits that do not fit into the destination type. The following example illustrates such an unchecked conversion in C#. It repeats the previous example in an unchecked context.

In languages that detect overflow, OverflowException is the exception that gets thrown. For example, in C#, the checked keyword is used to detect overflow conditions. An OverflowException exception occurs only in a checked context.

The following Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) instructions throw OverflowException :

add.ovf.<signed>
conv.ovf.<to type>
conv.ovf.<to type>.un
mul.ovf.<type>
sub.ovf.<type>
newarr

OverflowException uses the HRESULT COR_E_OVERFLOW, that has the value 0x80131516.

For a list of initial property values for an instance of OverflowException, see the OverflowException constructors.

Version Information

Silverlight

Supported in: 5, 4, 3

Silverlight for Windows Phone

Supported in: Windows Phone OS 7.1, Windows Phone OS 7.0

XNA Framework

Supported in: Xbox 360, Windows Phone OS 7.0

Platforms

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.

Thread Safety

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.

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