R – tracing and how should it be done

log4netnettrace

What is tracing and how should it be done?

I have a common utilities library I am including in my projects and I want to be able to get some output from it. I have been using log4net but would rather not have my common utilities library dependent upon log4net. Does that make sense?

Edit:
Is there any correlation between logging and tracing? Would I want to put tracing and logging into the same stream for some reason?

Should I perhaps replace some of the log4net Logger.Debug(..) I have in my projects with System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine(..)s?

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Here are some blog posts by Mike Rousos of the .NET BCL team:

A Tracing Primer – Part I - is a simple introduction to the tracing APIs.
A Tracing Primer – Part II (A) - talks mainly about filtering events
A Tracing Primer – Part II (B) - talks about developing custom trace listeners (plugins that will channel your trace events to wherever you desire).
A Tracing Primer – Part II (C) - talks about how the configuration files are interpreted.

This is the style that Microsoft tends to use in their examples.

It appears that the guidance in this area may have changed, as StyleCop now enforces the use of the C# specific aliases.

C# – the difference between const and readonly in C#

Apart from the apparent difference of

having to declare the value at the time of a definition for a const VS readonly values can be computed dynamically but need to be assigned before the constructor exits.. after that it is frozen.
const's are implicitly static. You use a ClassName.ConstantName notation to access them.

There is a subtle difference. Consider a class defined in AssemblyA.

public class Const_V_Readonly
{
  public const int I_CONST_VALUE = 2;
  public readonly int I_RO_VALUE;
  public Const_V_Readonly()
  {
     I_RO_VALUE = 3;
  }
}

AssemblyB references AssemblyA and uses these values in code. When this is compiled:

in the case of the const value, it is like a find-replace. The value 2 is 'baked into' the AssemblyB's IL. This means that if tomorrow I update I_CONST_VALUE to 20, AssemblyB would still have 2 till I recompile it.
in the case of the readonly value, it is like a ref to a memory location. The value is not baked into AssemblyB's IL. This means that if the memory location is updated, AssemblyB gets the new value without recompilation. So if I_RO_VALUE is updated to 30, you only need to build AssemblyA and all clients do not need to be recompiled.

So if you are confident that the value of the constant won't change, use a const.

public const int CM_IN_A_METER = 100;

But if you have a constant that may change (e.g. w.r.t. precision).. or when in doubt, use a readonly.

public readonly float PI = 3.14;

Update: Aku needs to get a mention because he pointed this out first. Also I need to plug where I learned this: Effective C# - Bill Wagner

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C# – the difference between String and string in C#

This is the style that Microsoft tends to use in their examples.

C# – the difference between const and readonly in C#

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