Debug Class

Debug Class

---

Namespace

System.Diagnostics

Creatable

No

Description

The Debug class is used to send messages to the Output Window (called the Immediate Window in VB 6). The Debug class can also send output to other targets (such as text files) referred to as listeners. See the Debug.Listeners Property entry for additional information. The Debug class also allows you to check program logic with assertions.

Because the Debug class's members are shared, you do not need to instantiate a Debug object before accessing its members. The following code fragment, for instance, illustrates a call to the Debug object's WriteLine method:

     Debug.WriteLine(soFar & " iterations through the loop") 

The following table lists some of the more useful and interesting members of the Debug class. Those marked with an asterisk (*) have separate entries in this chapter.

Member	Description
Assert Method *	Tests a condition and reports problems
AutoFlush Property	Indicates whether written data should be flushed to the output stream automatically
Close Method	Flushes and closes each listener (except the Output Window)
Fail Method	Sends an error message to the listeners
Flush Method	Flushes all pending data to the listeners
Indent Method	Increases the current indent level
IndentLevel Property	Indicates the current indent level
IndentSize Property	Identifies the number of spaces for each indent level
Listeners Property *	Lists the collection of listeners
Unindent Method	Decreases the current indent level
Write Method *	Writes text to the debug listeners
WriteIf Method *	Conditionally writes text to the debug listeners
WriteLine Method *	Writes full-line text to the debug listeners
WriteLineIf Method *	Conditionally writes full-line text to the debug listeners

Usage at a Glance

The Debug class features only work in the design-time environment; the statement has no effect in a compiled application. You do not have to remove Debug-related features from your code before release.

Version Differences

The VB 6 Debug object had only two methods: Assert and Print. The .NET Assert method is similar to the VB 6 method of the same name, except that the .NET version displays a message if an expression is False, while the VB 6 version suspends program execution. In .NET, the VB 6 Print method is removed, replaced by the Write, WriteIf, WriteLine, and WriteLineIf methods.

See Also

Debug.Assert Method, Debug.Write Method, Debug.WriteLine Method