naming conventions - When is "Try" supposed to be used in C# method names?

Question

We were discussing with our coworkers on what it means if the method name starts with "Try".

There were the following opinions:

• Use "Try" when the method can return a null value.
• Use "Try" when the method will not throw an exception.

What is the official definition? What does "Try" say in the method name? Is there some official guideline about this?

Answer 1

This is known as the TryParse pattern and has been documented by Microsoft. The official Exceptions and Performance MSDN page says:

Consider the TryParse pattern for members that may throw exceptions in common scenarios to avoid performance problems related to exceptions.

Thus if you have code for which a regular use case would mean that it might throw an exception (such as parsing an int), the TryParse pattern makes sense.