DBAs love using the function fn_trace_gettable to read contents from a trace file . Just pass the path of the trace file to this function and it will show the content of trace file.But what if developers want to read the same using .NET framework.You can’t have the luxury of having SQL Server installed in every machine so that you can execute fn_trace_gettable. This function can’t be executed remotely using a linked server.
First thing what you need to do is open VS 2010 and give reference to SQL Server SMO assembly Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfoExtended.dll and Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo.dll
Once you have reference to these dll’s in your project then you can use an object of TraceFile class to read the content of TraceFile.
//Reads the trace file TraceFile trcFile = new TraceFile();
trcFile.InitializeAsReader(strFileName);
while (trcFile.Read())
{
string strTextData = trcFile.GetString(trcFile.GetOrdinal("TextData")).ToString();
string strApplication=trcFile.GetString(trcFile.GetOrdinal("ApplicationName")).ToString();
}
trcFile.Close(); But before reading these values you may need to check if these columns are null by using the code
trcFile.IsDBNull(trcFile.GetOrdinal("TextData"));
Once you have these values you can load it into a SQL Server remote database and then create reports based on these values.Please don’t forget to include Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Trace namespace in your code.
