Anybody Know of any Tools to help Analysing .NET Trace Log Files?

Question

I am developing a C# .NET application. In the app.config file I add trace logging as shown,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <system.diagnostics>
    <trace autoflush="true" />
        <sources>
            <source name="System.Net.Sockets" maxdatasize="1024">
                <listeners>
                    <add name="MyTraceFile"/>
                </listeners>
            </source>
        </sources>

        <sharedListeners>
            <add
              name="MyTraceFile"
              type="System.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener"
              initializeData="System.Net.trace.log"
            />
        </sharedListeners>

        <switches>
            <add name="System.Net" value="Verbose" />
        </switches>

  </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

Are there any good tools around to analyse the log file that is output? The output looks like this,

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] Data from Socket#8764489::Send
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] 00000000 : 4D 49 4D 45 2D 56 65 72-73 69 6F 6E 3A 20 31 2E : MIME-Version: 1.
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] 00000060 : 65 3A 20 37 20 41 70 72-20 32 30 31 30 20 31 35 : e: 7 Apr 2010 15
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] 00000070 : 3A 32 32 3A 34 30 20 2B-31 32 30 30 0D 0A 53 75 : :22:40 +1200..Su
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] 00000080 : 62 6A 65 63 74 3A 20 5B-45 72 72 6F 72 5D 20 45 : bject: [Error] E
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] 00000090 : 78 63 65 70 74 69 6F 6E-20 69 6E 20 53 79 6E 63 : xception in Sync
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] 000000A0 : 53 65 72 76 69 63 65 20-28 32 30 30 38 2E 30 2E : Service (2008.0.
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

System.Net.Sockets Verbose: 0 : [5900] 000000B0 : 33 30 34 2E 31 32 33 34-32 29 0D 0A 43 6F 6E 74 : 304.12342)..Cont
    DateTime=2010-04-07T03:22:40.1067012Z

Is there anything that can take the output shown above (my output is a text file 100mb in size), group together packets, and help out with finding particular issues I would like to hear about it.

Thanks.

Answer 1

It seems to me like what you really are trying to accomplish is analysing the network traffic. If this is the case, there are several good tools available. For instance Wireshark, which is open-source.

Answer 2

LogParser gives you a SQL-like syntax for querying log files. It might do the trick, though I've only used it on standard IIS logs.

Answer 3

I didn't really use any particularly special tools in the end on this one. I analysed the log files a bit with notepad++, and then realised that these logs were not going to solve my problem, and moved on.