TraceSwitch

The TraceSwitch can be used in your code to specify the level of message you want to display to your user.

Integer value	Enumerated value
0	Off
1	TraceError
2	TraceWarning
3	TraceInfo
4	TraceVerbose

If we take a look at the following code for a simple WebForms page

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Diagnostics;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

namespace WebApplication1

{

    public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page

    {

        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            var ts = new TraceSwitch("mySwitch", "");

            //if level explicitly set to 0

            if (ts.Level == 0)

                Response.Write("Nothing<br />");

            //inclusively if level > 0

            if (ts.TraceError)

                Response.Write("Error<br />");

            //inclusively if level > 1

            if (ts.TraceWarning)

                Response.Write("Warning<br />");

            //inclusively if level > 2

            if (ts.TraceInfo)

                Response.Write("Info<br />");

            //inclusively if level > 3

            if (ts.TraceVerbose)

                Response.Write("Verbose<br />");

        }

    }

}

The nice thing is you can set the traceswtich value in the webconfig or appconfig.

<configuration>

  <system.diagnostics>

    <switches>

      <add name ="mySwitch" value ="3"/>

    </switches>

  </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

would result in



but if we set the value to 0

<configuration>

  <system.diagnostics>

    <switches>

      <add name ="mySwitch" value ="0"/>

    </switches>

  </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

Then instead we'd see