Using DevTracer with .NET

The .NET framework provides in namespace System.Diagnostics all classes required for tracing: the classes Trace and Debug with methods Write, WriteLine, Indent, and Unindent .

The main difference between the classes is: Debug applies only to the debug version of the application, Trace applies to debug and release versions.

Trace and Debug are very flexible concerning the targets of the trace information. The targets of trace information are Tracelisteners. Some trace listeners are included with .NET, like the TextWriterTraceListner and the DefaultTraceListener. The later is responsible for sending trace information to the output window of Visual Studio.

DevTracer Component is a TraceListener.

The following image shows some simple code in C# and the output it generates in DevTracer Monitor.

And an example for Visual Basic.NET:

DevTracer component and its TraceListener are implemented in assembly NRSoftware.Tracer.dll. During setup of DevTracer this assembly is added to the Global Assembly Cache. Therefore it is accessible to all applications.

There are three techniques to prepare an application to use DevTracer:

• Add a reference to NRSoftware.Tracer.dll. This approach is not recommended. It requires that NRSoftware.Tracer.dll is distributed with the application, because the application will not run without this assembly. Adding a reference is not explained here, because the other options provide more flexibility.

• Add some lines to your application’s configuration file. For ASP.NET applications the lines have to be added to WEB.CONFIG.

• Add some code to your application which is called once when the application is started. DevTracer component's TraceListener is loaded using reflection.

Using a Configuration File

<configuration>
 <system.diagnostics>
  <trace autoflush="false" indentsize="4">
   <listeners>
    <add name="myListener" 
         type="NRSoftware.Tracer.Listener,NRSoftware.Tracer, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=867dfab712f16c0b" 
         initializeData="localhost:12345" />
    <remove name="Default" />
   </listeners>
  </trace>
 </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

Using Reflection

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Reflection;

namespace NRSoftware.DevTracer
{
    public static class TracerInit
    {
        private static bool _tryedLoadinListenerBefore = false;

        public static void InitListener()
        {
            if (_tryedLoadinListenerBefore) return;
            _tryedLoadinListenerBefore = true;
            try
            {
                string assemblyFullName = "NRSoftware.Tracer, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=867dfab712f16c0b";
                // load assembly -- throws an exception if DevTracer Component not installed
                Assembly ass = Assembly.Load(assemblyFullName);

                object[] args = new object[1];
                args[0] = "localhost:12345";    // initializeData
                // create instance of class derived from TraceListener
                object obj = ass.CreateInstance("NRSoftware.Tracer.Listener", false, BindingFlags.Default, null, args, null, null);

                // optional : set application name
                args[0] = "MyApplication";
                obj.GetType().InvokeMember("ApplicationName",
                    BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.SetProperty,
                    null, obj, args);

                TraceListener li = obj as TraceListener;
                Trace.Listeners.Add(li);                // add listener 
                li.IndentSize = 8;                      // set indentsize

                // the following line is optional - it removes the default trace listener
                Trace.Listeners.Remove("Default");
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                // do nothing if DevTracer Component not installed
            }
        }
    }
}

Add this class to your project. You must call TracerInit.InitListener() once in your application. If you develop a Windows Forms application, Main() is a good place.