This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Jeff Key. Original Post: NullTextWriter Feed Title: Jeff Key Feed URL: http://www.asp.net/err404.htm?aspxerrorpath=/jkey/Rss.aspx Feed Description: Topics revolve around .NET and the Windows platform. Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Jeff Key Latest Posts From Jeff Key

I'm trying to do some profiling on a command line app that uses a number of assemblies that spit out a bunch of debug information via Console.WriteLine (this isn't the intent and the calls have since been removed; I just don't have the latest bits yet).  This is no problem on the command line, as I can redirect output to null via “> nul”.  Unfortunately, this doesn't work when started from a profiler.

The simple solution was to add an optional “-null” argument to the application.  When that argument is given, I replace the standard out with a NullTextWriter, then re-add the standard out at program end in case any exceptions were thrown, etc.  Here's the magic:

public class NullTextWriter : TextWriter  {
     public override System.Text.Encoding Encoding  {
          get { return ASCIIEncoding.Default; }
     }
}

You can set the output stream by calling Console.SetOut(TextWriter).  Works for me.