This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Eric Gunnerson. Original Post: Conditional Methods Feed Title: Eric Gunnerson's C# Compendium Feed URL: /msdnerror.htm?aspxerrorpath=/ericgu/Rss.aspx Feed Description: Eric comments on C#, programming and dotnet in general, and the aerodynamic characteristics of the red-nosed flying squirrel of the Lesser Antilles Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Eric Gunnerson Latest Posts From Eric Gunnerson's C# Compendium

I saw an internal post today about somebody who wanted to get rid of their #if DEBUG statements in their code, because they were ugly. That made me realize that there's a feature that not everybody knows about, known as conditional methods.

Consider the following code:

using System; using System.Diagnostics; 

class Program { static void Main(string[] args) {
 #if DEBUG DebugMethod1(); #endif
 DebugMethod2(); Console.ReadKey(); } static void DebugMethod1() { Console.WriteLine("Debug1"); } [Conditional("DEBUG")] static void DebugMethod2() { Console.WriteLine("Debug2"); } } 

In my call to DebugMethod1(), I've used the traditional #if approach to only compile the call if the DEBUG symbol is defined. But in the call to DebugMethod2(), I've used a conditional method that has the same effect - if the DEBUG symbol is not defined, it's as if the call isn't there. That includes any side effects from parameter evaluation - they don't happen.

Note that the docs on the ConditionalAttribute class are a bit misleading.