The Trace property is used to enable or disable the
tracing of network function calls and is primarily used as a
debugging tool. When enabled, each function call is logged to a
file, including the function parameters, return value and error
code if applicable. This facility can be enabled and disabled at
run time, and the trace log file can be specified by setting the
TraceFile property. All function calls that are being logged
are appended to the trace file, if it exists. If no trace file
exists when tracing is enabled, the trace file is created.
The tracing facility is enabled or disabled for an entire
process. This means that once tracing is enabled for a given
instance of the object, all of the function calls made by the
process will be logged.
If tracing is not enabled, there is no negative impact on
performance or throughput. Once enabled, application performance
can degrade, especially in those situations in which multiple
processes are being traced or the trace file is fairly large. Since
trace files can grow very quickly, even with modest applications,
it is recommended that you delete the file when it is no longer
needed.