Question

I would like to change the default Environment.NewLine character for my current environment.

I have one standalone application that is writing messages to a console. When the core framework works in the console environment the new line is \r\n. When I move the core framework into a Windows service the Environment.NewLine changes to “\n”.

I would like to be able to change the Console to always use “\r\n” because when I redirect the output of the console to a file the output has no “windows new lines” when read from example Notepad.

I would like Console.WriteLine to use \r\n whenever I want.

EDIT:

I am redirecting Console.out:

        ConsoleOut = File.AppendText(fileName);
        ConsoleOut.AutoFlush = true;


        Console.SetOut(ConsoleOut);
        Console.SetError(ConsoleOut);

Every Console.WriteLine or Console.Write is sent to a file but as I said I am experiencing different behaviours in Windows Service and in standalone Windows environment.

Answer 1

I’m not convinced by this:

When I move the core framework into a Windows service the Environment.NewLine changes to “\n”

I’ve checked the IL for get_NewLine(), and it is hard-coded to:

ldstr "\r\n"
ret

So basically; the problem isn’t what you think it is; changing Environment.NewLine isn’t going to do anything (and: isn’t possible).

So: how are you redirecting? I tend to just do something like:

if (!Environment.UserInteractive)
{
    var tw = new SlowWriter(Path.Combine(logPath,"{0}.log"));
    Console.SetError(tw);
    Console.SetOut(tw);
}

where SlowWriter is a custom type (subclasses TextWriter) that makes sure the file doesn’t stay open; slower, but pretty robust:

class SlowWriter : TextWriter
{ // this opens and closs each time; slower, but doesn't lock the file
    private readonly string path;
    public SlowWriter(string path)
    {
        this.path = path;
    }
    public override System.Text.Encoding Encoding
    {
        get { return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8; }
    }
    private TextWriter Append()
    {
        var finalPath = string.Format(path, DateTime.UtcNow.ToString("yyyyMMdd"));
        return File.AppendText(finalPath);
    }
    public override void Write(string value)
    {
        lock (this)
        {
            using (var file = Append())
            {
                file.Write(value);
            }
        }
    }
    public override void Write(char[] buffer, int index, int count)
    {
        lock(this)
        {
            using (var file = Append())
            {
                file.Write(buffer, index, count);
            }
        }
    }
    public override void Write(char[] buffer)
    {
        lock (this)
        {
            using (var file = Append())
            {
                file.Write(buffer);
            }
        }
    }
}