{Programming} & Life

Wow, I just learnt a valuable trick in LINQ 2 SQL.

Set your DB Data Context “Log” property to “Console.Out” and once a query has been executed by LINQ 2 SQL, the query executed is outputted to console! This is great, but I straight away would want this sending to a debug window or if you are after further flexibility, you can output to a file, memory or multiple output writers with the below code:

class DebugTextWriter : System.IO.TextWriter {
   public override void Write(char[] buffer, int index, int count) {
       System.Diagnostics.Debug.Write(new String(buffer, index, count));
   }

   public override void Write(string value) {
       System.Diagnostics.Debug.Write(value);
   }

   public override Encoding Encoding {
       get { return System.Text.Encoding.Default; }
   }
}

To use it then simply:

#IF DEBUG
myDataContext.Log = new DebugTextWriter();
#endif

^^ I personally use the “#IF DEBUG” line that way this only occurs in debug mode, but it is up to you.

Major thanks to DamienG over at his blog!