Seeing debug traces without a debugger?

Question

How can one look at .NET Debug.WriteLine traces outside the debugger?

Answer 1

Check out DebugView. I have not used this with .NET, but I have used it with VC++ apps.

Answer 2

Use dbgview

Answer 3

You can either use DbgView from Sysinternals or add the following to your applications config file to trace messages to the console:

<configuration>
  <system.diagnostics>
    <sources>
      <source name="TraceTest" switchName="SourceSwitch" 
        switchType="System.Diagnostics.SourceSwitch" >
        <listeners>
          <add name="console" />
          <remove name ="Default" />
        </listeners>
      </source>
    </sources>
    <switches>
      <!-- You can set the level at which tracing is to occur -->
      <add name="SourceSwitch" value="Warning" />
        <!-- You can turn tracing off -->
        <!--add name="SourceSwitch" value="Off" -->
    </switches>
    <sharedListeners>
      <add name="console" 
        type="System.Diagnostics.ConsoleTraceListener" 
        initializeData="false"/>
    </sharedListeners>
    <trace autoflush="true" indentsize="4">
      <listeners>
        <add name="console" />
      </listeners>
    </trace>
  </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

You can also change the type of the trace listener in the log file from System.Diagnostics.ConsoleTraceListener to any other trace listener, e.g. to log to the system's EventLog or to trace to a custom application.