Entity Framework 6 & SQL Server Compact (8) –Logging SQL statements

I previously blogged about how to enable logging of INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE statements with SQL Server Compact and Entity Framework 4. Keep in mind that there is no “SQL Profiler” equivalent for SQL Server Compact, which makes this feature a vital tool for debugging, understanding and improving queries and CUD operations.

In Entity Framework version 6.1, this has been made much simpler, thanks to the implementation of the new System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.Interception.DatabaseLogger class. In version 6.0, you could enable logging in code by using

db.Database.Log = Console.Write;

In version 6.1, it is now possible to enable logging by adding entries to your app.config file, making it possible to add logging to a deployed application.

Enabling logging is as simple as adding the following section to your app.config/web.config file in the entityFramework section.

<interceptors> 
  <interceptor type="System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure.Interception.DatabaseLogger, EntityFramework"> 
    <parameters> 
      <parameter value="C:\Temp\LogOutput.txt"/> 
      <parameter value="true" type="System.Boolean"/> 
    </parameters> 
  </interceptor> 
</interceptors>

The first parameter is the name of the file to log to (if this is not specified, logging will be sent to Console.Out). The second parameter specifies that the file should be appended to rather than being overwritten (default).

I am sure you will find this new feature useful.