Return SQL Server error to user

Errors when performing an SQL statement against a database raise an exception in the connector. Those exceptions are of type SqlException and, as such, have a Message property that contains a user friendly description of the error.

Remember though that while user-friendly, this message is aimed at developers. You should not display that to an end-user.

As usual, to trap an exception you have to use a try-catch block:

try
{
    SqlConnection conn = null; 
    conn = new SqlConnection(connString);  // connstring is your connection string to the database
    conn.Open(); 

    var strSQLCommand = "SELECT* FROM TABLE";  // statement is wrong! will raise an exception
    var command = new SqlCommand(strSQLCommand, conn); 
    var ret = command.ExecuteScalar(); 

    conn.Close(); 

    return ret; 
}
catch (SqlException e)
{
    Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}

This example of course assumes a Console application.

try this

try
{
      //your sql code
}

catch(SqlException sqlEx)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < ex.Errors.Count; i++)
        {
            errorMessages.Append("Index #" + i + "\n" +
                "Message: " + ex.Errors[i].Message + "\n" +
                "LineNumber: " + ex.Errors[i].LineNumber + "\n" +
                "Source: " + ex.Errors[i].Source + "\n" +
                "Procedure: " + ex.Errors[i].Procedure + "\n");
        }
        Console.WriteLine(errorMessages.ToString());
}

SqlException - which catches all the sql exception

Try using a try, catch clause

something like that:

try {
// Update Code Here
}
catch (Exception e) {
// Error message in e.Message
// On a form
   MessageBox.Show(e.Message, "Error!");
// TextBox text1 is defined
   text1.Text = e.Message;
   System.Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}

where you can replace Exception with the type of exception you want to catch (SqlException).