.net - How do I find out the _exact_ error from SQL Server

Question

I have an application in .NET. It updates a SQL Server database.
An exception is thrown. How do I know exactly what happened?

Understanding that it, for instance, was a foreign key violation isn't any problem. But which foreign key is.

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The explaining text (exception.Message) is enough for me, as a human, since it holds (semi-) free text. But a computer shouldn't have to lower itself to human chitter chatter.

Especially since the error message might change between SQL Server versions and absolutely between installed languages. "...foreign key exception FK_Cust..." or "...fr?mmande nyckel undantag FK_Cust..."

There is a number (a remains from the COM heydays?) that maps to a certain class of error but I haven't found the very foreign key, or index, or constraint that failed in a computer understandable way.

Answer 1

You look at the SqlException.Errors collection. Each SqlError in the collection has a Number. That number will be your exact error.