Curtis Koppang wrote: > Why would the two be considered different?
In the "try" case, there is the possibility that an exception might be thrown before the value is assigned to. In the non-"try" case, any thrown exception would prevent the return value. Assign author to null before entering the try block. Brad -- Read my web log at http://www.quality.nu/dotnetguy/ You can read messages from the DOTNET archive, unsubscribe from DOTNET, or subscribe to other DevelopMentor lists at http://discuss.develop.com.
