How to use console output in an ASP.NET environment? - c#

I would like to print some traces during the requests processing.
But when I make Console.WriteLine("something") in this environment, nothing is shown.
What is missing, what do I need to do in order to use console to print these traces?

Use Debug.Write() and and watch the results come out through the debugger output window in the IDE.
Alternatively, use the ASP.NET trace feature, which is quite powerful. Once you have enabled tracing, you can navigate to the trace.axd page in your web app's root directory. This page will show the trace messages for your app.

In addition to the methods already mentioned you can simply write to a log file:
File.AppendAllText(#"c:\log.txt", #"Debug Message Here!" + Environment.NewLine);
Of course you could use Server.MapPath to write the file in your web directory.

I know this is late, but you can write to your Javascript console from your C# script using the following class
public static class Javascript
{
static string scriptTag = "<script type=\"\" language=\"\">{0}</script>";
public static void ConsoleLog(string message)
{
string function = "console.log('{0}');";
string log = string.Format(GenerateCodeFromFunction(function), message);
HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(log);
}
public static void Alert(string message)
{
string function = "alert('{0}');";
string log = string.Format(GenerateCodeFromFunction(function), message);
HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(log);
}
static string GenerateCodeFromFunction(string function)
{
return string.Format(scriptTag, function);
}
}
That way you can see your log messages in real time as you click through the site, just as you would in js.

You can use Response.Write to write output to your page for debugging, or use alert in javascript, or even write to a log file. There are many ways to get debugging output. There's also a log4net for .Net that you can use (similar to log4j)

Given that it's an ASP.NET application, I would do:
Page.Trace.Write ("Something here");
Then enable trace either for the page or the application and then just go to ~/Trace.axd to see the results (they can also be at the end of the page output, depending on the configuration option that you choose).

Where are you looking for the output?
Console.WriteLine() writes to the command line - not to the webpage. Either use Response.Write() to write onto the webpage or start up your application in the Visual Studio debugger to look at the command line output.

Related

Is it possible to do a simple print in WEB API without the use of a console?

As the title suggested, is it possible to print out info for web API? I understand there is the option of logging but I am just trying to look for a simple print. I tried console.writeline() but my WEB API do not have a console.
I publish the API to an IIS server, and I would call the API for various functions through a webpage. However, there is no logging setup yet therefore I am trying to find a quick and easy way to print info such as the value of a variable etc. For instance, I would console.log() when I do a quick troubleshoot on my webpage, how can I achieve this for WEB API?
There are a couple of options.
If you use a typical logging framework like Log4Net or Serilog or similar, you can easily write to files. This is easy to set up and recommended.
If you need it now, and are using windows, you could use the event log to write data to it.
See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.diagnostics.eventlog?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0
// Create an EventLog instance and assign its source.
EventLog myLog = new EventLog();
myLog.Source = "MySource";
// Write an informational entry to the event log.
myLog.WriteEntry("Writing to event log.");
And look for it in the windows event log.
See this on how to access it.
I just noticed writing to a txtfile would be the easiest for me, if I were to avoid setting up logging, basically I will just call as something below when needed.
private void fakeLogging (string data)
{
string logpath = #"C:\path\to\file.txt";
if (!System.IO.File.Exists(logpath))
{
FileStream fs = System.IO.File.Create(logpath);
fs.Close();
}
System.IO.File.AppendAllText(logpath, DateTime.Now + " " + data + Environment.NewLine);
}

Local Service account canot write to filesystem

I have created a simple Windows service, following these youtube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp2aFNtcZfk.
This works, so long as I don't try to do any logging. If I call my logging function:
public static void LogMsg(LogMsgTypes msgType, string msg)
{
string path = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
string logFileName = string.Format("{0}Recalculator{1:yyyyMMdd}.log",path, DateTime.Now);
var file = System.IO.File.AppendText(logFileName);
file.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} {1,-9} : {2}", DateTime.Now.ToString(), msgType, msg));
file.Close();
}
then the service crashes and I get an Unauthorized Access Exception error in the Windows Event Log. I know I should be logging to the Event Log anyway, but I gather I will have to create the source manually first and I would really like to be able to write to a file if possible. On the youtube tutorial I am following, the guy gets no errors at all.
I think the correct answer is probably that I should do it 'right' by creating a source in the Windows Event Log and then writing to there instead of to a custom log file.
For now, I have just installed the service to run under Local System.

How to keep XmlWriterTraceListener from xml-encoding characters in the message

I am trying to use System.Diagnostics.XmlWriterTraceListener to log to a local file. I start by creating a source and adding a new XmlWriterTraceListener to it, like so:
public class Logger
{
const string LOG_ERR_FMT = "<message><![CDATA[{0}]]></message>{2}";
TraceSource tSource = new TraceSource(
"MyApp",
SourceLevels.Verbose | SourceLevels.ActivityTracing
);
public Logger() {
tSource.Listeners.Add(
new XmlWriterTraceListener("C:\\app_path\\app_tracelog.svclog", "LocalListener")
);
}
public static Logger defLogger = new Logger();
public static Logger Default {
get {return defLogger; }
set { if (value != null) defLogger = value; }
}
public void LogError(string msg, string extraXmlData) {
tSource.TraceEvent(TraceEventType.Error, 0, LOG_ERR_FMT, logMsg, extraXmlData);
}
}
I've simplified the log format in the sample above. The actual LogError method takes an Exception object and inserts some xml-serialized data about it into the message, but that's not needed to show what my problem is here.
Anyways, any other part of my app can now log an error to the "app_tracelog.svclog" file with a simple line like, oh say...
Logger.Default.LogError(
"Error parsing response from web service \"someservice.com\".",
"<RequestBody><![CDATA[" + responseBody + "]]></RequestBody>"
);
All is well until I open up app_tracelog.svclog. First of all, when I try to open it with Microsoft Service Trace Viewer, that program behaves like it's empty, and gives me a message of "There is no trace loaded from the file."
Second, I open the file with good old Notepad++ and find that my app DID INDEED log to it. I select all and tell XmlTools to pretty it up, and the tool tells me it can't do it because there's errors in the XML.
So, I start formatting it manually. All goes well at first, until I get to the actual application message that I logged. Here, I find that this STUPID ##$ class has screwed up all my nested XML by replacing brackets and such with encoded XML/HTML entities!
All my '<'s have become "<", All my '>'s have become ">", etc... So the log message that SHOULD have looked like:
<message><![CDATA[Error parsing response from web service "someservice.com".]]></message><RequestBody...
Now looks like:
<message><![CDATA[Error parsing response from web service "someservice.com".]]></message><RequestBody...
So the big question is: How can I FORCE XmlWriterTraceListener to stop trashing my message when I log? I know what I'm doing when I put in special XML characters, and it thinks it knows better! --OR- Is there another listener class that will log to a local XML file the way I want?

How to use Console.WriteLine in ASP.NET (C#) during debug?

I want to write some result to the console in ASP.NET (C#).
It works in a Window application, but a Web application does not work.
Here is what I have tried:
protected void btonClick_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine("You click me ...................");
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("You click me ..................");
System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine("You click me ..................");
}
But I see nothing in the Output panel. How do I solve this problem?
Console.Write will not work in ASP.NET as it is called using the browser. Use Response.Write instead.
See Stack Overflow question Where does Console.WriteLine go in ASP.NET?.
If you want to write something to Output window during debugging, you can use
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("SomeText");
but this will work only during debug.
See Stack Overflow question Debug.WriteLine not working.
using System.Diagnostics;
The following will print to your output as long as the dropdown is set to 'Debug' as shown below.
Debug.WriteLine("Hello, world!");
If for whatever reason you'd like to catch the output of Console.WriteLine, you CAN do this:
protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
var writer = new LogWriter();
Console.SetOut(writer);
}
public class LogWriter : TextWriter
{
public override void WriteLine(string value)
{
//do whatever with value
}
public override Encoding Encoding
{
get { return Encoding.Default; }
}
}
Trace.Write("Error Message") and Trace.Warn("Error Message") are the methods to use in web, need to decorate the page header trace=true and in config file to hide the error message text to go to end-user and so as to stay in iis itself for programmer debug.
You shouldn't launch as an IIS server. check your launch setting, make sure it switched to your project name( change this name in your launchSettings.json file ), not the IIS.
Use response.write method in the code-behind.
Make sure you start your application in Debug mode (F5), not without debugging (Ctrl+F5) and then select "Show output from: Debug" in the Output panel in Visual Studio.

Debug.WriteLine to different "channel"?

http://i.minus.com/ibsHfIOAy7lBCj.png
I want to write some stuff to VS's output window so I can see what's going on, but it just gets flooded with all this other stuff. Is there some way I can write to a different "channel"? It's got that dropdown there, which I see AnkhSVN has added itself too...can I add another one with only my stuff in there maybe?
Use Trace for this. You will either have an App.config file or a Web.config file in the project that is running. In this file add a trace listener.
When you call trace, which is very similar to Debug, you can specify the level (Info, Warning, Debug, Error). Based on this level you can decide where and how that information is saved.
How to Trace and Debug in Visual Studio
You can use the "Redirect all Output Window text to the Immediate Window" option:
Although it says all, it will only redirect Debug.WriteLine, etc.
Alternatively you can suppress the noisy messages from the output window itself:
If you create a visual studio addin (in default) you will have a connect.cs with a public void OnConnection(object application, ext_ConnectMode connectMode, object addInInst, ref Array custom)
You can use this application object to do what you want to do.
DTE2 app = (DTE2)application;
OutputWindowPane XXX = app.ToolWindows.OutputWindow.OutputWindowPanes.Add("XXX");
Now you can use :
XXX.OutputString("some text" + Environment.NewLine);
And this text will appear in the "channel" called "XXX"

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