{"id":529,"date":"2003-10-26T17:31:03","date_gmt":"2003-10-26T21:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.cephas.net\/?p=529"},"modified":"2007-10-11T19:46:58","modified_gmt":"2007-10-12T03:46:58","slug":"logging-in-c-enumerations-thread-safe-streamwriter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/2003\/10\/26\/logging-in-c-enumerations-thread-safe-streamwriter\/","title":{"rendered":"Logging in C#: enumerations, thread-safe StreamWriter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe<\/a> gave me some great feedback<\/a> on the C# logging utility<\/a> I wrote about a couple months ago. Per his suggestions, I modified it in the following ways:<\/p>\n

1) Instead of using public static int variables as levels, I added an enumeration:
\n
\nenum Priority : int {
\n  OFF = 200,
\n  DEBUG = 100,
\n  INFO = 75,
\n  WARN = 50,
\n  ERROR = 25,
\n  FATAL = 0
\n}
\n<\/code>
\nAn enumeration is a value type (ie: the enumeration is not a full fledged object) and thus is allocated on the stack. I’m guessing that Joe suggested the use of an enumeration for 2 reasons. First, an enumeration groups the constants together… in some sense it encapsulates what was a group of unrelated static integers into a single type, in this case named ‘Priority’. Second, because enumerations are value types (and thus are allocated on the stack), they require less resources from both the processor and memory on which the application is running.<\/p>\n

2) Joe mentioned “… you probably need to put a lock{} around the calls to it (StreamWriter) –it’s not guaranteed to be threadsafe.<\/i>“. Turns out he’s right (not that it was a surprise). The StreamWriter documentation<\/a> has this to say: “Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.<\/i>” But the solution is easier than putting a lock{} on it. StreamWriter extends the TextWriter class, which itself has a static method for generating a thread safe wrapper. So where in the first version I had this:
\n
\nStreamWriter sw = File.AppendText(filePath);
\n<\/code>
\nI now have this:
\n
\nTextWriter tw = TextWriter.Synchronized(File.AppendText(filePath));
\n<\/code>
\nThe File.AppendText() method returns a StreamWriter object, which the TextWriter.Synchronized() method wraps to create a thread-safe TextWriter which can be used just like a StreamWriter. <\/p>\n

3) I noticed that the log4j implementation uses wrapper methods to make the argument list shorter. For instance, the Logger class has methods that look like this:
\n
\npublic void debug(Object message);
\npublic void info(Object message);
\npublic void warn(Object message);
\npublic void error(Object message);
\npublic void fatal(Object message);
\n<\/code>
\nI added the same idiom to my Logger class:
\n
\npublic static void Debug(String message) {
\n  Logger.Append(message, (int)Priority.DEBUG);
\n}
\n<\/code>
\nwhile still allowing for the more verbose:
\n
\npublic static void Append(String message, int level)
\n<\/code>
\nI uploaded the source and a test so you all can have a hack at it, if that kind of thing toots your horn:
\n· Logger.cs<\/a>
\n· TestLogger.cs<\/a>
\nI’m *always* open to comments and feedback. If you have even an inkling as to what I could do better with this code, *please* add your thoughts below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joe gave me some great feedback on the C# logging utility I wrote about a couple months ago. Per his suggestions, I modified it in the following ways: 1) Instead of using public static int variables as levels, I added an enumeration: enum Priority : int {   OFF = 200,   DEBUG = 100,   INFO = … Continue reading Logging in C#: enumerations, thread-safe StreamWriter<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cephas.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}