>> My only concern is that since this is a generic routine used by every select statement in my app, how do I stop the program from erroneously running further?

Re-throw the exception:

. . .
try 
{
 // do something
}
catch (SqlException e)
{
 // do something with the exception
 throw (e);
}

Or better would be to create your own exception, DALException, throw it with the original exception embedded within.

catch (SqlException e)
{
 throw (new DALException(e)
}

-Mike

Michael Levy
MCSD, MCDBA
ma_levy@hotmail.com