Is it possible to do a simple print in WEB API without the use of a console?

Question

As the title suggested, is it possible to print out info for web API? I understand there is the option of logging but I am just trying to look for a simple print. I tried console.writeline() but my WEB API do not have a console.

I publish the API to an IIS server, and I would call the API for various functions through a webpage. However, there is no logging setup yet therefore I am trying to find a quick and easy way to print info such as the value of a variable etc. For instance, I would console.log() when I do a quick troubleshoot on my webpage, how can I achieve this for WEB API?

Answer 1

There are a couple of options.

If you use a typical logging framework like Log4Net or Serilog or similar, you can easily write to files. This is easy to set up and recommended.

If you need it now, and are using windows, you could use the event log to write data to it.

See: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.diagnostics.eventlog?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0

// Create an EventLog instance and assign its source.
EventLog myLog = new EventLog();
myLog.Source = "MySource";

// Write an informational entry to the event log.
myLog.WriteEntry("Writing to event log.");

And look for it in the windows event log.

See this on how to access it.

Answer 2

I just noticed writing to a txtfile would be the easiest for me, if I were to avoid setting up logging, basically I will just call as something below when needed.

private void fakeLogging (string data) 
{

    string logpath = @"C:\path\to\file.txt";

    if (!System.IO.File.Exists(logpath))
    {
        FileStream fs = System.IO.File.Create(logpath);
        fs.Close();
    }

    System.IO.File.AppendAllText(logpath, DateTime.Now + " " + data + Environment.NewLine);
}