C# Cookbook

6.3. Creating Your Own Custom Switch Class

Problem

The BooleanSwitch and TraceSwitch classes defined in the FCL may not always have the required flexibility or fine-grained control that you need. You want to create you own switch class that provides the level of control and flexibility that you need. For example, creating a class that allows you to set more precise trace levels than those supported by the TraceSwitch class. The TraceSwitch class provides the following tracing levels:

TraceError

TraceWarning

TraceInfo

TraceVerbose

However, you need a finer-grained set of levels, such as the following:

Disable	MinorError
Note	MediumError
Warning	CriticalError

Solution

You can create your own switch class that inherits from System.Diagnostics.Switch and provides the level of control that you need. For example, creating a class that allows you to set more precise trace levels than those supported by the TraceSwitch class involves the following steps:

1. Define a set of enumerated values that represent the levels to be supported by your switch class:

   public enum AppSpecificSwitchLevel 
   {
       Disable = 0,
       Note = 1,
       Warning = 2,
       MinorError = 3,
       MediumError = 4,
       CriticalError = 5
   }

2. Define a class, such as AppSpecificSwitch, that inherits from System.Diagnostics.Switch:

   public class AppSpecificSwitch : Switch { protected AppSpecificSwitchLevel level = 0; public AppSpecificSwitch(string displayName, string description) : base(displayName, description) { this.Level = (AppSpecificSwitchLevel)base.SwitchSetting; ...