Question

I’m trying to create a C# console application that will generate a log file. I’d like to have some flexibility with where the log file will be stored.

I tried using the Settings.settings file with:

Name: logDrive Type: string Scope: Application Value: C:\Scripts\Logs

In my code, I’m using:

string logFile = DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString() + ' ' + DateTime.Now.ToShortTimeString(); logFile = logFile.Replace(@'/', @'-').Replace(@'\', @'-') + '.log'; string logDrive = Properties.Settings.Default.logDrive; StreamWriter output = new StreamWriter(logDrive + logFile); 

When compiling the above I get the error message ‘The given path’s format is not support.’

If it helps, the values for:

logDrive = ‘C:\Scripts\ServiceDesk\Logs’ logFile = ‘3-23-2009 1:20 PM.log’

Does anyone have any thoughts/ recommendations for a better approach and/ or what I’m doing wrong?

Answer 1

You can’t include a : in a filename. A better approach might be to use a format like

YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.log 

(e.g. 20090323_231245.log)

This has the benefit of being easily sortable, and it doesn’t use any invalid characters.

You can get this using

string logFile = string.Format('{0:yyyyMMdd_HHmmss}.log', DateTime.Now); 

Notes:

Also, as suggested in the comments, you should consider using Path.Combine to combine your directory and filename. This will help mitigate issues with trailing path separators, etc.