Test Plug-in execution using trace

One of the pervious posts,  we discussed few ways of testing how plug-in is executing and whether expected values are being retrieved to the right variables and etc.

Anyway, recently I found tracing as one of the other effective way of testing a plug-in.
What is done here is usage of tracer object (use Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk) to trace any value within the flow.

Below code will give an idea how it’s being done in your code. Please have a good look at the throw of exception line within the catch block. See how the traced information has been passed with the exception.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk;
using Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.Query;
using System.ServiceModel;

namespace ABCandComSol
{
public class AccountQualifier : IPlugin 
{
  public void Execute(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
  {

    ITracingService tracer = (ITracingService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(ITracingService));

    try
    {
        //Any information you need to trace
        // ex;
        //tracer.Trace("Account:{0} and Guid:{1}", _account.Name, _account.accountid);
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        tracer.Trace(ex.Message);
        throw new InvalidPluginExecutionException("[" + ex.Message + "]" + ex.StackTrace, ex);
    }
    finally
    {
    }

  }
}
}

Once plug-in is failed all the details you put in the tracer is viewable.  So positive side is, you don’t need to remove any code once code starts working fine. In future, if client say something failed, you got all the information you need in hand!

How to see the trace values

Synchronous Plug-in: Once exception is thrown, check information, you may see all the tracer information within error information.

Asynchronous Plug-in: If plug-in fails, a system jobs will show relevant failed entry. Once you open it, you may see all the tracer information. Further reading here.

Note
In fact, if you want to test something for a working code, you may need to forcefully throw an exception.