Question

The TRACE macro can be used to output diagnostic messages to the debugger when the code is compiled in Debug mode. I need the same messages while in Release mode. Is there a way to achieve this?

(Please do not waste your time discussing why I should not be using TRACE in Release mode 🙂

Answer 1

Actually, the TRACE macro is a lot more flexible than OutputDebugString. It takes a printf() style format string and parameter list whereas OutputDebugString just takes a single string. In order to implement the full TRACE functionality in release mode you need to do something like this:

void trace(const char* format, ...) {    char buffer[1000];     va_list argptr;    va_start(argptr, format);    wvsprintf(buffer, format, argptr);    va_end(argptr);     OutputDebugString(buffer); }