Outputting to the Console in C# on IIS

Question

We are trying to debug some web services code we're running in C# on IIS. I am new to Windows programming and have no idea how to view output to the console. We've got some write statements in the code, but I can't figure out how to view the console while this thing is running. Help?

Answer 1

If you're using asp.net then trace.axd should contain trace statements (as long as its turned on).

Answer 2

You aren't going to get a console for IIS. CLOSEST you will come is Debug.WriteLine w/ a debugger attached or using page tracing. Recommendation would be to use a logging framework that will write to debugger (when attached) as well as a file and possibly the event log (all configured via your listeners).

Some great ones are log4net and NLog.

Answer 3

You'll want to take a look at ASP.NET tracing

here is a handy link to get you started: http://www.asp101.com/articles/robert/tracing/default.asp

you can enable application wide tracing if you place the following in your web.config, then you will have access to your trace.axd

<trace enabled="true" 
    localOnly="false" 
    pageOutput="false" 
    requestLimit="500" 
    traceMode="SortByTime"
/>

Answer 4

I have found the Trace feature extremely helpful. You can get there by going to: http://mysiteurl/trace.axd

In your web.config, place the following within the System.Web tag:

<trace enabled="true" 
       localOnly="false" 
       pageOutput="false" 
       requestLimit="500" 
       traceMode="SortByTime"
/>

Now from your code behind, you can inject some logging by doing:

HttpContext.Current.Trace.Warn("I Made It Here!");