Question

What is the best approach to creating a simple multithread safe logging class? Is something like this sufficient? How would I purge the log when it’s initially created?

public class Logging
{
    public Logging()
    {
    }

    public void WriteToLog(string message)
    {
        object locker = new object();

        lock(locker)
        {
            StreamWriter SW;
            SW=File.AppendText("Data\\Log.txt");
            SW.WriteLine(message);
            SW.Close();
        }
    }
}

public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
    public static MainWindow Instance { get; private set; }
    public Logging Log { get; set; }

    public MainWindow()
    {
        Instance = this;
        Log = new Logging();
    }
}

Answer 1

No, you’re creating a new lock object every time the method is called. If you want to ensure that only one thread at a time can execute the code in that function, then move locker out of the function, either to an instance or a static member. If this class is instantiated every time an entry is to be written, then locker should probably be static.

public class Logging
{
    public Logging()
    {
    }

    private static readonly object locker = new object();

    public void WriteToLog(string message)
    {
        lock(locker)
        {
            StreamWriter SW;
            SW=File.AppendText("Data\\Log.txt");
            SW.WriteLine(message);
            SW.Close();
        }
    }
}