Instrumenting code using #if DEBUG #endif Block

Its usually very difficult to debug  a software with large amount of code. People generally writelogs, write traces while debugging code and often forget to remove these .this will result in undesirable messages in production code.

A bad way of instrumenting  code is shown below

static void calleeFunc()

        {

            try

            {

                Trace.WriteLine("in callee func");

                Console.WriteLine("in callee func");

                int i = 1;

                int j = 0;

                int k = i / j;

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                throw ;

            }

The problem with  this snippet is that it displays unnecessary messages when compiled in Release mode.This can also lead to security vulnerabilities

A way to solve the problem is the use of conditional compilation directives provided by c# compiler.

The  #if DEBUG end if block  enables the trace message and console messages in debug mode and strips it of in release mode

   static void calleeFunc()

        {

            try

            {

#if DEBUG

                Trace.WriteLine("in callee func");

                Console.WriteLine("in callee func");

#endif

                int i = 1;

                int j = 0;

                int k = i / j;

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                throw ;

            }

        }

The use of the #if debug  #endif block helps eliminate unnecessary debug messages in production(Release Mode code) This way you can stop spending large amount of time in removing code used for understanding or tracing.