Diagnostics.Trace

Expression

Writes a trace message if tracing is enabled and returns the provided value.

Syntax

Diagnostics.Trace(traceLevel as number, message as anynonnull, value as any, optional delayed as nullable logical) as any

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`traceLevel`	`number`	Yes	The severity level of the trace message. Use TraceLevel.Critical, TraceLevel.Error, TraceLevel.Warning, TraceLevel.Information, or TraceLevel.Verbose.
`message`	`anynonnull`	Yes	The trace message to write. Can be a text value or a zero-argument function that returns text when delayed is true.
`value`	`any`	Yes	The value to return. Can be the actual value or a zero-argument function when delayed is true.
`delayed`	`logical`	No	If true, the evaluation of both message and value is deferred until the trace message is actually consumed, improving performance when tracing is disabled.

Return Value

any — The value passed as the third argument, returned unchanged after writing the trace message.

Remarks

Diagnostics.Trace writes a trace message to the Power Query diagnostics log (if tracing is enabled) and returns value unchanged. This is the primary function for debugging and instrumenting M queries.

The traceLevel parameter controls the severity of the message using the TraceLevel enumeration:

TraceLevel.Critical — critical failures
TraceLevel.Error — errors
TraceLevel.Warning — warnings
TraceLevel.Information — informational messages
TraceLevel.Verbose — detailed diagnostic output

Delayed evaluation

When delayed is true, both message and value should be zero-argument functions (e.g., () => "my message" and () => expensiveComputation()). This ensures that the message text and value are only computed when the trace is actually being recorded, avoiding unnecessary overhead when tracing is disabled.

Viewing trace output

To view trace output in Power BI Desktop, enable query diagnostics via Tools > Diagnostics > Start Diagnostics, then run your query and stop diagnostics. The trace messages appear in the diagnostics tables.

Examples

Example 1: Trace a message before a computation

let
    Result = Diagnostics.Trace(
        TraceLevel.Information,
        "Converting number to text",
        () => Text.From(123),
        true
    )
in
    #table({"Result"}, {{Result}})

Output

	Result
1	123

Example 2: Trace with a warning level

let
    RawValue = null,
    Result = if RawValue = null then
        Diagnostics.Trace(
            TraceLevel.Warning,
            "RawValue was null, using default",
            0
        )
    else
        RawValue
in
    #table({"RawValue", "Result"}, {{RawValue, Result}})