Logging to a Text File

[JDYoder]

I need to keep a log file of activity in a simple text file. I've done this in VB6, but I'm guessing VB.NET has a single object I can use to write individual lines to a text file. Or is that not the case? Thanks for any recommendations you can give.

[PlausiblyDamp]

You want to look at the classes in the System.IO namespace, specifically the FileStream and StreamWriter classes.

[JDYoder]

If I declare variables as either of those types, I see there are "Write" commands and other stuff, but I'm not seeing how you assign a particular file to either of them to serve as the log file.

[Simcoder]

Not sure if this helps, but this is how I log stuff to text files.

 

       Dim Datawrite As StreamWriter
       Datawrite = New StreamWriter("C:/Test.txt")
       Datawrite.WriteLine("Hello World")  
       Datawrite.Close()

 

-=Simcoder=-

[JDYoder]

That looks like it'll work. Thanks for the starting point.

 

BTW, I can't figure out your avatar... what is it? Some mythical being playing a flute?

[Simcoder]

Lol, actually its a Navy Seal holding a gun. Its from a game called Counter-Strike. I just made him change colors =p

 

-=Simcoder=-

[JDYoder]

Ah. I can kind of see it now. hehe.

 

Your code worked for me, but I see it always recreates the file. How can I tweak it so that it will append instead?

[thenerd]

dim fs as filestream
fs = new filestream("C:\test.txt",filemode.append)
dim sw as streamwriter
sw = new streamwriter(fs)
sw.writeline("Poo")
sw.close
fs.close

 

That should do it. Check the intellisense when you type filemode. You'll get quite a few of options there.

 

Also, streamreaders work very similarly to streamwriters.

 

EDIT: Oh! filestream,streamwriter,streamreader and filemode are all things in the system.io namespace. So, they should be io.filestream, io.streamwriter, etc if you didn't import io.