Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.3 for Visual Studio 2015 > Programming > Problem Determination and Diagnostic Tools > Consolidated Tracing Facility > To enable CTF tracing

To Enable CTF Tracing

Set the MFTRACE_CONFIG environment variable to point to the ctf.cfg configuration file, before you invoke the application. For example:
```
set MFTRACE_CONFIG=c:\ctf\ctf.cfg
```
Set the MFTRACE_LOGS environment variable to specify the location in which to create the CTF trace files. If MFTRACE_LOGS is not set, the current folder is used.
Note: Both the 32- and 64-bit Visual COBOL command prompts set MFTRACE_LOGS to %ProgramData%\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL\2.x\mftrace\logs.

Edit the configuration file to specify the information to trace, for example:

mftrace.dest = binfile
mftrace.emitter.binfile#location  = c:\logs
mftrace.level.mf.rts              = info
mftrace.comp.mf.rts#pgm           = true
mftrace.comp.mf.rts#pgmload       = true
mftrace.comp.mf.rts#syspgm        = true

Note: If the location of the trace file is specified in the configuration file, as shown above, it overrides the MFTRACE_LOGS setting.

Run the application from the environment you set up.

If you are using the .NET environment, instead of setting the MFTRACE_CONFIG variable you can configure CTF tracing in an app.config file in the same folder as its associated app.exe file. The configuration statements must be inserted in an <mftrace_config> section in the <configSections> as CDATA. For example:

<?xml version ="1.0"?>
  <configuration>
    <configSections>
      <sectionGroup name="MicroFocus.COBOL.Tracing">
        <section name="mftrace_config"
         type="MicroFocus.COBOL.Runtime.CdataSectionHandler,
         MicroFocus.COBOL.Runtime.Win32,Version=4.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,
         PublicKeyToken=0412c5e0b2aaa8f0" />
      </sectionGroup>
    </configSections>
    <MicroFocus.COBOL.Tracing>
      <mftrace_config>
        <![CDATA[>
mftrace.dest                           = binfile
mftrace.emitter.binfile#location       = c:\logs
mftrace.level.mf.rts                   = info
mftrace.comp.mf.rts#pgm                = true
mftrace.comp.mf.rts#pgmload            = true
mftrace.comp.mf.rts#syspgm             = true
        <]]>
      </mftrace_config>
    </MicroFocus.COBOL.Tracing>
  </configuration>

Note: If the MFTRACE_CONFIG variable is set, CTF uses it in preference to an app.config file.