Why finally block may not execute when exception is thrown?

Question

For a long time I thought that it allows me to free up all the resources in the finally block and I thought that if an exception happens in the try block, then the resources will still be free up in the finally block. But that seems not to be the case.

I have the following piece of code:

using System;

public sealed class Program
{

    public static void Main()
    {
        try {
            int zero = 0;
            int i = 1/zero;
        } finally {
            Console.WriteLine("divide by zero"); //the line is never called
        }
    }
}

I never reach the line which prints to the console. That means that I will not be able to free up resource in finally block in this case on the exception being thrown inside the try block.

So, I believe there are two things: either I am missing something or the try + finally combination has no use cases in the C#. The second statement makes sense, because I will get the same functionality as is produced by the above code with the code below:

using System;

public sealed class Program
{

    public static void Main()
    {
            int zero = 0;
            int i = 1/zero;

            Console.WriteLine("divide by zero"); //the line is never called
    }
}

But I am afraid that I might be missing something here. So, could someone confirm that the combination is useless or prove that it is not, please?

UPDATE

After the comment which is able to call the finally block in its fiddle, I checked once more in the VS Code, and still I see no output.

Answer 1

You're assumptions are incorrect (sometimes) https://dotnetfiddle.net/hjqmOS

try-finally (C# Reference)

By using a finally block, you can clean up any resources that are allocated in a try block, and you can run code even if an exception occurs in the try block. Typically, the statements of a finally block run when control leaves a try statement. The transfer of control can occur as a result of normal execution, of execution of a break, continue, goto, or return statement, or of propagation of an exception out of the try statement.

There are cases when it doesn't run though

Within a handled exception, the associated finally block is guaranteed to be run. However, if the exception is unhandled, execution of the finally block is dependent on how the exception unwind operation is triggered. That, in turn, is dependent on how your computer is set up.

Here is the important part

Usually, when an unhandled exception ends an application, whether or not the finally block is run is not important. However, if you have statements in a finally block that must be run even in that situation, one solution is to add a catch block to the try-finally statement. Alternatively, you can catch the exception that might be thrown in the try block of a try-finally statement higher up the call stack.

Answer 2

try/catch/finally has nothing to do with freeing up resources. This is strictly application flow and error handling construct. You live in the managed code and garbage collector frees up resources. This construct does the following

try
{
    int zero = 0;
    int i = 1/zero;
}
catch (DividedByZeroException ex)
{
    Console.WriteLine(Exception handled);
    throw; // propagate ex to caller
}
finally
{
    Console.WriteLine("Method ended execution"); // called with or without exception
}

Answer 3

I believe this is because you have VS to break on unhandled errors and thus VS steps in displaying the exception. If you compile it and run it manually on the command line I believe you will see "divide by zero". Also, instead of changing your VS settings, you can 'handle' the error and then should see the behavior you expect.

Example:

using System;

public sealed class Program
{

public static void Main()
{
    try
    {
        int zero = 0;
        int i = 1 / zero;
    }
    catch
    {

    }
    finally
    {
        Console.WriteLine("divide by zero"); 
    }
}
}