
Full Answer
What is nlog?
The focus for NLog: high performance, easy-to-use, easy to extend and flexible to configure. NLog is very easy to configure, both through configuration file and programmatically. Even without restarting the application, the configuration can be changed. Targets are used to display, store or pass log messages to another destination.
Where does nlog look for application configuration files?
The .NET Compact Framework doesn't recognize application configuration files (*.exe.config) nor environmental variables, so NLog only looks in these locations: applicationname.exe.nlog in the application's directory NLog.nlog in the application's directory NLog.dll.nlog in a directory where NLog.dll is located
How to get the output of nlog from the target file?
Again, open Nlog.Config file and add line given below under targets tag. In the existing rule, add the file (name of the target) with the console. Now, your code will look like, as shown below. Run the code. Now, you will see the output in two places, where one is in console Window and the second is in the target file.
How do I add nlog to my code?
To configure NLog in your code, you need to: Create a LoggingConfiguration object that will hold the configuration. Create one or more targets (objects of classes inheriting from Target) Set the properties of the targets. Define logging rules through LoggingRule objects and add them to the configuration's LoggingRules.

What is NLog config in C#?
NLog is a . Net Library that enables you to add high-quality logs for your application. NLog can also be downloaded using Nugget in Visual Studio. Targets are used to display, store, or pass log messages to another destination.
What is NLog used for?
NLog is “a free logging platform for . NET, Silverlight and Windows Phone with rich log routing and management capabilities. It makes it easy to produce and manage high-quality logs for your application regardless of its size or complexity.”
What can be configured with this NLog config file?
The following types can be configured: Targets - the destinations of a logevent, e.g. file, database, console. Layout - the layout e.g. json, csv, plain-text (default) Layout renderers - the template markers, e.g. ${message}, ${exception}, ${date}
Where do I put NLog config?
Configuration File Just make a config called NLog. config in the root of your project. If you have a separate config file, make sure you set the "Copy to Output Directory" is set to "Copy Always" to avoid many tears wondering why the logging doesn't work.
How do I use NLog in Web API?
NLog makes it easy to write to several targets....ImplementationOpen Visual Studio. ... Select Web> ASP.NET Web Application > Give your project a name (I have given NLogTest), and then click OK.Select WebAPI and click OK.Now, you have to add NLog to your project. ... Now, add the following code to your config file.More items...•
How do I start logging with NLog?
How To Start Logging With NLogPrerequisites.Step 1 — Creating a Project.Step 2 — Installing Dependencies.Step 3 — Creating a Logger.Step 4 — Configuring the Logger.Step 5 — Creating Extra Classes.Step 6 — Logging.Conclusion.
What is NLog in .NET core?
NLog is a flexible and free logging platform for various . NET platforms, including . NET standard. NLog makes it easy to write to several targets. (database, file, console) and change the logging configuration on-the-fly.
How do I edit NLog config?
You can find the NLog. config file in {Project Folder}\bin\Debug\net5. 0\ . You can open and edit it as you like with Notepad or Visual Studio.
What types of logs are supported in NLog library?
NLog provides a great API for logging messages to one or more targets....The following log levels are supported:Fatal.Error.Warn.Info.Debug.Trace.
Is NLog asynchronous?
NLog 1.0 supports asynchronous logging, but there is no good support for asynchronous exception handling. This is because wrappers targets are not capable of receiving exceptions which are raised on other threads.
How do I use NLog in .NET 5?
DescriptionCreate a new .NET 5 console project.Add dependency in csproj manually or using NuGet. Install: The package NLog. ... Create a nlog. config file. ... Update your program. 3.1 Create your Person class. ... 4 Example output. 2021-05-22 12:33:20.8486|Info|Person Sky spoke Hello |name=Sky, text=Hello.
How do you use NLog for multiple projects in the same solution?
If you want to log in other projects within the solution, just reference NLog. dll directly in each of the projects and use it. But now you only need to configure NLog in your main application. The configuration will then be shared automatically across all projects that reference NLog.
Which logging framework is best for .NET core?
NLog is one of the most popular, and one of the best-performing logging frameworks for . NET. Setting up NLog is fairly simple. Developers can use Nuget to download the dependency, then edit the NLog.
What are the NLog levels?
Writing Log Messages With NLog The available methods for logging are (in ascending order): Trace, Debug, Info, Warn, Error, and Fatal. Each of these methods creates a log message with a corresponding log level—an indicator of the message's importance.
Is NLog asynchronous?
NLog 1.0 supports asynchronous logging, but there is no good support for asynchronous exception handling. This is because wrappers targets are not capable of receiving exceptions which are raised on other threads.
What types of logs are supported in NLog library?
NLog provides a great API for logging messages to one or more targets....The following log levels are supported:Fatal.Error.Warn.Info.Debug.Trace.
What is nlog in NET?
NLog is a .NET library which enables you to add sophisticated tracing code to your application, delivering the functionality mentioned above and much, much more.
How does NLog work?
NLog can monitor logging configuration files and re-read them each time they are modified. To enable this mechanism, you simply set <nlog autoReload="true" /> in your configuration file. Note that automatic reconfiguration supports include files, so each time one of the file includes is changed, the entire configuration gets reloaded.
What else is possible with NLog?
NLog supports some more logging scenarios, which couldn't be fully described here. See the links below for more information:
Why does NLog use shorthand notation?
Because asynchronous processing is a common scenario, NLog supports a shorthand notation to enable it for all targets without the need to specify explicit wrappers. You simply set <targets async="true" />, and all your targets will be wrapped with the AsyncWrapper target.
How many lines of code does NLog require?
NLog provides many predefined targets. They are described on the project's homepage. It's actually very easy to create your own target - it requires about 15-20 lines of code and is described in the documentation.
When was the source code for the GitHub project?
It seems that source code here is from 2006 while Github (see the project home page mentioned in the article under More Info) has versions of 2011 and 2013.
Does.NET Compact Framework recognize application configuration files?
The .NET Compact Framework doesn't recognize application configuration files ( *.exe.config) nor environmental variables, so NLog only looks in these locations:
What is nlog in NET?
NLog is a flexible and free logging platform for various .NET platforms, including .NET standard. NLog makes it easy to write to several targets. (database, file, console) and change the logging configuration on-the-fly. NLog has support for structured and traditional logging.
What is the focus of NLog?
The focus for NLog: high performance, easy-to-use, easy to extend and flexible to configure.
What is nlog in NET?from logit.io
NLog is a flexible and free logging platform for various .NET platforms, including .NET standard. NLog makes it easy to write to several targets. (database, file, console) and change the logging configuration on-the-fly. NLog has support for structured and traditional logging.
What is the focus of NLog?from nlog-project.org
The focus for NLog: high performance, easy-to-use, easy to extend and flexible to configure.
How to simplify config file?from stackoverflow.com
Use "variable" in your config file to simplify. For example, you might define variables for your layouts and then reference the variable in the target configuration rather than specify the layout directly.
What log level does nLog switch to?from stackoverflow.com
switch to "trace" log level, but only for current web request (nLog)
How to name a logger?from stackoverflow.com
Use the common pattern of naming your logger based on the class Logger logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger (). This gives you a high degree of granularity in your loggers and gives you great flexibility in the configuration of the loggers (control globally, by namespace, by specific logger name, etc).
Can a logger be marked as final?from stackoverflow.com
See the NLog help for more info on exactly what each of the options means. Probably the most notable items here are the ability to wildcard logger rules, the concept that multiple logger rules can "execute" for a single logging statement, and that a logger rule can be marked as "final" so subsequent rules will not execute for a given logging statement.
Can you use NLog with Silverlight?from stackoverflow.com
When using NLog with Silverlight you can send the trace to the server side via the provided web service . You can also write to a local file in the Isolated Storage, which come in handy if the web server is unavailable. See here for details, i.e. use something like this to make yourself a target:
What is nlog in programming?
Nlog is an open source log platform. Through this platform, we can log an activity of an application. This makes an application's code easy to handle. Nlog provides a cross platform support.
Can we log messages into a file?
Files- We can log our messages into a file.
What is nlog in Dotnet?
NLog is an advanced Dotnet library for structural logging. It can store the logs by level in files, databases, and third services.
What is nlogis in C#?
NLogis a C# library used for logging. It is highly configurable, used by many projects. It supports by default various destinations for logs.
What is nlog configuration?from c-sharpcorner.com
The NLog configuration file is an XML file that contains the settings related to NLog. This file must be named in lower-case and may be put in the root of our project.
What is addlogging in nlog?from thecodebuzz.com
AddLogging methods let you provide custom configuration for logging if needed. You can set log severity or type of log need to be logged. Logger customization is easily configured through the NLog.config file. Please see below the logfile example.
What is a target in nlog?from codewithmukesh.com
Targets are where you write your logs. It can be as simple as a plain old text file, as well as an email that can notify the team when a critical error occurs. With NLog, you get the options to write to the following targets. We can configure NLog to write to multiple targets at a time. Files.
Why is setting up log level important?from codewithmukesh.com
Setting up the log level properly is quite important as it helps you in the long run to a great extent.
Why is logging important in ASP.NET?from c-sharpcorner.com
Logging is a very critical and essential part of any software. It helps us in the investigation of the essence of problems. ASP.NET Core has built-in support for logging APIs and is able to work with various logging providers.
What is Microsoft Extensions Logging?from stackoverflow.com
By using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging, then you get stuff like support for structured logging. And the ability to perform dynamic filtering and to replace your logging sink/target with your favorite choice. If you just want console-logging, then no need to choose any logging framework.
Is rolling file logging available in.NET?from thecodebuzz.com
File/Rolling File logging provider is still not available through the .NET Core Framework. We need to rely on external solutions for highend
What is nlog in a database?
NLog is a logging framework to log messages to one or more targets, as we've seen in this post. NLog has the concept of log levels and can log to a range of different destinations. Log messages are (typically) short text strings, that end up in a file or database. Custom properties can be attached to each log message and used in various ways like when serializing the log message or storing additional data in a database.
What is nlog in SQL?
Let's start with the basics. NLog is a logging framework for . NET. Ok, you probably already knew that. Much like log4net and Serilog, NLog lets you log messages to a range of data stores (called targets). Everything from the console to SQL Server, document databases, and elmah.io is supported and there are almost 100 of them. Also, NLog offers great flexibility when it comes to formatting messages and including additional information on each message.
What is NLog structured logging?
NLog supports semantic/structured logging known from similar frameworks like Serilog and Microsoft.Extensions.Logging. With structured logging, you no longer log just simple text messages. Structured properties can be embedded directly as part of the message logged to the target (or through adding key/value pairs to Properties as shown in the previous section).
Why is putting log levels on each message important?
Log levels are used to mark the severity of each message as well as other features in NLog like log filtering. Consider the scenario where you are logging both to a local file and elmah.io. You may want to log everything to the file but only Warn and up to elmah.io. Putting the right log level on each message is essential for this to work properly.
What is context in NLog?
Context types available in NLog are generally dictionaries and stacks, keeping additional properties. The context can be either global for the entire application lifespan or scoped for something shorter living like a thread. Context properties can be used to include contextual information to each log message. As I will show you later in this tutorial, the context can be accessed from both NLog targets as well as log message rendering using Layouts.
What is mapped diagnostics logic?
MappedDiagnosticsLogicalContext works much like GlobalDiagnosticsContext. It's a dictionary of property keys and values. But, unlike GlobalDiagnosticsContext where properties are global, MappedDiagnosticsLogicalContext lets you add thread-local properties. This means that the added properties will be available inside the current thread only. This works great for something like including HTTP contextual properties per web request (each web request launch a new thread) or other threaded applications.
Does NLog have a configuration API?
NLog doesn't provide a fluent configuration API as known from ASP.NET Core and Serilog. NLog 4.7 comes with something new, but I have yet to look into the possibilities. As soon as it is officially launched, I'll update this post with an example.

File Locations
NLog Config XML
- NLog configuration is formatted as XML and is either embedded in a Visual Studio project config file (app.config or web.config) or is a stand-alone XML file (Remember to configure File Properties: Copy If newer) Example XML for a stand-alone NLog.config: To embed NLog config XML inside app.config / web.config file, add an nlog section element under...
Top-Level Elements
- You can use the following elements as children to nlog. targets and rulesare required in any configuration The others are optional and can be useful in advanced scenarios. 1. targets– defines log targets/outputs 2. rules– defines log routing rules 3. extensions– loads NLog extensions from the *.dll file 4. include– includes external configuration file 5. variable– sets th…
Targets
- The targets section defines log Targets. Each target is represented by a targetelement. There are two attributes required for each target: 1. name– target name 2. type – target type – such as "File", "Database", "Mail". When using namespaces this attribute is named xsi:type. In addition to these attributes, targets usually accept other parameters, which impact the way diagnostic trace…
Log Levels
- Each log entry has a level. And each logger is configured to include or ignore certain levels. A common configuration is to specify the minimum level where that level and higher levels are included. For example, if the minimum level is Info, then Info, Warn, Error and Fatal are logged, but Debug and Trace are ignored. The log levels ordered by severity: There is one more level, Off ha…
Rules
- The rules section controls what Logger-objects and log levels are active and their output targets. When creating a NLog Logger-object then one must provide a logger-name like NLog.LogManager.GetLogger("blah blah"). The logger-name can also be extracted from class-context by using NLog.LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger()where logger-name becomes "Na…
Variables
- NLog Config Variables allows you to simplify configuration by reducing repeated text. Variable can be used to give a human name to a NLog Layout that is commonly used (or is long and complex). This makes it easier to organize and structure the NLog config. Define a custom variable as follows: The value of a variable can be inserted into an attribute value via the ${varna…
Layouts and Layout Renderers
- One of NLog’s strongest assets is the ability to use layouts. In the simplest form, layouts are texts with embedded tags delimited by ${ and }. The tags are called Layout Renderersand can be used to insert pieces of contextual information into the text. Layouts can be used in many places, for example they can control the format of information written on the screen or sent to a file, but als…
Asynchronous Processing and Wrapper Targets
- NLog provides wrapper and compound targets which modify other targets’ behavior by adding features like: 1. asynchronous processing (wrapped target runs in a separate thread) 2. retry-on-error 3. load balancing 4. buffering 5. filtering 6. failover (failover) To define a wrapper in the configuration file, simply nest a target node within another target node. You can even wrap a wr…
Default Wrappers
- Sometimes we require ALL targets to be wrapped in the same way, for example to add buffering and/or retrying. NLog provides <default-wrapper /> syntax for that. You simply put this element in the <targets /> section and all your targets will be automatically wrapped with the specified wrapper. Note that <default-wrapper /> applies to the single <targets />section only and you can …