Question

I have got a utility class, called ErrorLog, which basically does some basic error logging kinda stuff, recording error messages, stacktraces, etc.

So in my main c# app, I almost always chuck this piece of code, ErrorLog el = new ErrorLog() into the catch(Exception e) part, and then start calling its methods to do logging.

For example, here is 1 of the methods in ErrorLog class

public void logErrorTraceToFile(string fname, string errorMsg, string errorStackTrace)
{ 
    //code here
}

Anyway, I am just wondering if it’s a good approach to log errors in this way? It seems to me that this solution is a bit clumsy. (considering in each catch block you create el object and call its method, repeatedly.)

Also, in terms of storing error log files, where it the best / most reasonable location to save them? Currently, I just hard-coded the directory, C:\ErrorLogs\, as I am still testing a few things. But I do want to get it right before I forget.

So any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Usually I’m using the Singleton pattern to have one application wide Logger.

public class Logger
{
    protected static Logger _logger;

    protected Logger()
    {
        // init
    }

    public void Log(string message)
    {
        // log
    }

    public static Logger GetLogger()
    {
        return _logger ?? _logger = new Logger();
    }
}

As a place to store data I would use the application data or user data directory, only there you can be sure to have write access.

Edit: That’s how you would use the Logger from any place in your code:

Logger.GetLogger().Log("test");