Question

I have an application which monitors some devices. I can send a string to the device, and receive text back from the device.

What I need is to make a log file (just .txt) which logs all data sent / received by the device. This should be displayed live in a the application.

Currently what I do is write the logs to a rich textbox and from there to a file. But I want to split the backend code (interfacing with the device and creating the log file) from the gui. This to make the communication interface with the device more portable.

As I am thinking through this process I face one issue: How to update the logs live in my application? I can think of this option: Make a timer and make the gui update on a time interval. but this does not feels terrible. It would be nice to have a buffer in between, and update the gui if the buffer has changed.

Any tips on how to do this correctly?

Answer 1

Maybe you could make your log content IObservable and make your UI subscribe to its changes?

Another option would be to implement INotifyPropertyChanged and and use a PropertyChangedEventHandler to be notified of changes.

Here’s a code snippet showing you how to do it with the NotifyPropertyChanged:

using System.ComponentModel;
public class YourClass : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
    private void NotifyPropertyChanged(String info)
    {
        if (PropertyChanged != null)
        {
            PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(info));
        }
    }

    protected void AddLogLine(String log)
    {
        // do your process
        NotifyPropertyChanged("Log");
    }
}

To register to the changes you simply do something like (in your UI constructor):

YourClassInstance.PropertyChanged += new PropertyChangedEventHandler(MyFunctionToHandleLogChanges);

Note: make sure you properly remove and add again the handler if you change YourClassInstance

And then to update your UI, in your UI class again:

void MyFunctionToHandleLogChanges(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.PropertyName == "Log")
    {
        // Update UI
    }
}