Microsoft Access Log

General

Logging is a common task when developing frontends. The more information is written into logs, the better the frontend, the user and the developer can control and react on the processes carried out by the frontend and its underlying code.

Terms

Log Message

A log message is the smallest unit of information, which represents or describes an event.

Event Type

The event type has not only descriptive use but is also suitable

for controlling the verbosity of the logging. Examples

Task

A task is a set of actions that has to be executed.

By providing a task name in log messages it is easier to display or analyze a sub set of log messages.

Step

A step represents a single action.

Text

The text describes the reason why the message has been logged.

Detail

Details contain deeper complementary information, which will allow more specific analysis.

Reference

The reference specifies the object the message is related to.

ReferenceId

If the given reference provides means of identity, the identifying information can be provided here.

Example:

Microsoft Access Log: Log Message

Information	Content
Event Type	Information
Task	Import
Step	Validation
Text	Details match summary
Detail	Summary: 1024 records, Details: 1024 records
Reference	tblImportFile
ReferenceId	257

Log Facility

Log messages can be written into visual controls, tables and files. The decision where these messages are stored vary by scenario, verbosity and other considerations.

In order to make logging as flexible as possible, it is possible to plug in as many log facilities into the logging service as necessary.

The log facilities encompass

Direct

This log facility writes log messages into the Direct Window of the Visual Basic Editor.

Table

By registering the table log facility it is possible to log messages into database tables.

File

The file log facility allows the user to log messages into different types of files

like plain text, CSV, Excel and XML files.