The Trace property is used to enable or disable the
tracing of Windows Sockets function calls. When enabled, each
function call is logged to a file, including the function parameters,
return value and error code if applicable. This facility can be
enabled and disabled at run time, and the trace log file can be
specified by setting the TraceFile property. All function
calls that are being logged are appended to the trace file, if it
exists. If no trace file exists when tracing is enabled, the trace
file is created.
The tracing facility is available in all of the networking
controls, and is enabled or disabled for an entire process. This
means that once tracing is enabled for a given control, all of the
function calls made by the process using any of the SocketTools
controls will be logged. For example, if you have an application
using both the FTP client and server controls, and you set the Trace
property to True on the FTP client control, function calls made by both controls will be logged. Additionally, enabling a trace
is cumulative, and tracing is not stopped until it is disabled for
all controls used by the process.
If tracing is not enabled, there is no negative impact on
performance or throughput. Once enabled, application performance can
degrade, especially in those situations in which multiple processes
are being traced or the trace file is fairly large. Since trace files
can grow very quickly, even with modest applications, it is
recommended that you delete the file when it is no longer needed.
Only those function calls made by the SocketTools networking
controls will be logged. Calls made directly to the Windows Sockets
API, or calls made by other controls, will not be logged.