Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.
Why clutter your inbox with error messages? Why make special code provisions for users to receive error messages via email? Why not log your error messages and have users subscribe to receive them in their favorite RSS aggregator?
If you are logging your exceptions already, you may find it easier to provide a syndication service. The process is ridiculously simple, and starts by creating a new project using the "Syndication Service Library" template. This template creates everything for you. All you need to do now is fill the SyndicationFeed with SyndicationItem objects.
Add a new class file called Feeds.cs:
1 using System;
2 using System.Linq;
3 using System.ServiceModel;
4 using System.ServiceModel.Syndication;
5 using System.ServiceModel.Web;
6
7 namespace SyndicationService
8 {
9 [ServiceContract]
10 [ServiceKnownType(typeof(Atom10FeedFormatter))]
11 [ServiceKnownType(typeof(Rss20FeedFormatter))]
12 public interface IFeeds
13 {
14 [OperationContract]
15 [WebGet(UriTemplate = "{type}?env={env}&app={app}", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Bare)]
16 SyndicationFeedFormatter CreateFeed(string type, string env, string app);
17 }
18
19 public class Feeds : IFeeds
20 {
21 public SyndicationFeedFormatter CreateFeed(string type, string env, string app)
22 {
23 SyndicationFeed feed = CreateSyndicationFeed(type, env, app);
24
25 // Return ATOM or RSS based on query string
26 // rss -> http://localhost:8000/Feeds/Errors?env=Production&app=MyAppName
27 // atom -> http://localhost:8000/Feeds/Errors?env=Production&app=MyAppName&format=atom
28 string query = WebOperationContext.Current.IncomingRequest.UriTemplateMatch.QueryParameters["format"];
29 SyndicationFeedFormatter formatter = null;
30 if (query == "atom")
31 {
32 formatter = new Atom10FeedFormatter(feed);
33 }
34 else
35 {
36 formatter = new Rss20FeedFormatter(feed);
37 }
38
39 return formatter;
40 }
41
42 private static SyndicationFeed CreateSyndicationFeed(string type, string env, string app)
43 {
44 SyndicationFeed feed;
45 switch (type.ToLower())
46 {
47 case "errors":
48 feed = CreateErrorsFeed(type, env, app);
49 break;
50 default:
51 feed = new SyndicationFeed(
52 String.Format("Feed is unavailable - Type: {0} / Environment: {1} / Application: {2}",
53 type, env, app), null, null);
54 break;
55 }
56 return feed;
57 }
58
59 private static SyndicationFeed CreateErrorsFeed(string type, string env, string app)
60 {
61 ApplicationLogDataContext db = new ApplicationLogDataContext();
62
63 SyndicationFeed feed = new SyndicationFeed
64 {
65 Title = new TextSyndicationContent(String.Format("{0} {1} {2}", env, app, type)),
66 Description = new TextSyndicationContent(
67 String.Format("Application error syndication for the {0} applicaiton ({1}).", app, env)),
68 Items = from e in db.Exceptions
69 where e.Environment == env && e.Application == app
70 select new SyndicationItem
71 {
72 Title = new TextSyndicationContent(e.Message),
73 Content = new TextSyndicationContent(e.StackTrace)
74 }
75 };
76 return feed;
77 }
78 }
79 }
Modify the App.config file:
1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
2 <configuration>
3 <configSections>
4 </configSections>
5 <connectionStrings>
6 <add name="SyndicationService.Properties.Settings.ApplicationLogConnectionString"
7 connectionString="Data Source=Scorpion;Initial Catalog=ApplicationLog;Integrated Security=True"
8 providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
9 </connectionStrings>
10 <system.serviceModel>
11 <services>
12 <service name="SyndicationService.Feeds">
13 <host>
14 <baseAddresses>
15 <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8000/" />
16 </baseAddresses>
17 </host>
18 <endpoint contract="SyndicationService.IFeeds"
19 address="Feeds"
20 binding="webHttpBinding"
21 behaviorConfiguration="WebHttpBinding_Common"/>
22 </service>
23 </services>
24 <behaviors>
25 <endpointBehaviors>
26 <behavior name="WebHttpBinding_Common">
27 <webHttp/>
28 </behavior>
29 </endpointBehaviors>
30 </behaviors>
31 </system.serviceModel>
32 </configuration>
You will need to adjust your project's Debug options to have command arguments that look similar to the following to F5-debug your service.
"/client:iexplore.exe" "/clientArgs:http://localhost:8000/Feeds/Errors?env=Production&app=GeoTracker"
Press F5 to test it out.
Here is the IE7 RSS viewer:
Here is your RSS aggregator viewing the same feed:
You will, of course, want to add some additional information to the content of your SyndidationItem, a bogus phrase works for this example.
Also, it is unusual that you would care to keep your exception details around for a long period of time. Since this is a syndicated feed of application errors, you should make special arrangements to archive or delete your exception log on a regular basis. This will not only keep your insert and select times low, but will also alleviate the burden placed on a new subscriber when all of the exceptions from the database appear at once. An alternative would also be to modify the LINQ in the code above to only bring back exceptions from the last 7-60 days depending on your counts. I already archive my exceptions to a master exception repository for all environments by way of an ETL job. This way I can report on my errors without disturbing the live environments too.
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