Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.3 for Visual Studio 2015 > Programming > Data Access > File Handling > File Handling Guide > Tracing File Operations > Configuring Tracing and Logging

Configuring Tracing and Logging

You use the File Handler configuration parameters TRACE, TRACEFILEEXTEND, TRACEFILENAME, LOG and LOGFILENAME to control tracing and logging activities:

Set TRACE=ON to turn tracing on
Set TRACEFILEEXTEND=ON to indicate that you want trace information to be written to the end of the current trace file, if the trace file already exists
Set TRACEFILENAME=filename if you want the trace file to have a name other than the default, which is xfhtrace.xfh
Set LOG=ON to indicate that you want any unusual file-related situations, such as corrupted files, or automatic file recovery, to be recorded in a log file for later examination
Set LOGFILENAME=filename if you want the log file to have a name other than the default, which is xfhlog

You can set TRACE and LOG either globally or for individual files, but you can only set TRACEFILEEXTEND, TRACEFILENAME and LOGFILENAME globally.

Here is an example configuration file:

[XFH-DEFAULT]
TRACE=OFF
TRACEFILENAME=c:\trace\mftracefile.xfh
TRACEFILEEXTEND=ON
LOG=ON
LOGFILENAME=c:\temp\mflogfile.log

[datafile1.dat]
TRACE=ON

[datafile2.dat]
LOG=OFF

In this example file tracing is set off globally and set on for the data file named datafile1.dat; new trace records are appended to the trace file, c:\trace\mftracefile.xfh, if it already exists. Logging is set on globally and set off for the data file named datafile2.dat.

Note: If the trace file might exceed a size of 4GB, ensure you specify the configuration options FILEMAXSIZE=8 and IDXFORMAT=8 (these are the default values).