úterý 19. května 2015

Log4net Configuration for Desktop Application

I have configured log4net for out current project, a plain Windows Desktop application. I wanted log to rolling file into the AppData\Local folder. Not the Roaming folder, since log are specific to the machine and it is waste of resources to let them roam around. Also I wanted to see logs in console, but in DEBUG mode only, not in production. First problem to find the AppData\Local\MyAppName has been solved by log4net.Util.PatternString class. It parses a special %envFolderPath and %appdomain patterns. The second problem, to configure ConsoleAppender just in DEBUG mode has several solutions. It is possible to load different configs, or to configure ConsoleAppender programatically. I have decided to create own DebugFilter, which denies all log in production mode. This way I have just one log4net config file. The cons is that it is very slightly less efficient to have configured an Appender which denies all log, but it's OK for most of applications.
<log4net>
  <appender name="RollingLogFileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
    <file type="log4net.Util.PatternString" value="%envFolderPath{LocalApplicationData}\%appdomain\log.txt" />
    <appendToFile value="true" />
    <maxSizeRollBackups value="2" />
    <maximumFileSize value="10MB" />
    <rollingStyle value="Size" />
    <staticLogFileName value="true" />
    <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
      <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger - %message%newline" />
    </layout>
  </appender>
  <appender name="ConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ConsoleAppender">
    <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
      <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger - %message%newline" />
    </layout>
    <filter type="cvtBackend.Logging.DebugFilter" />
  </appender>
  <!-- Setup the root category, add the appenders and set the default level -->
  <root>
    <level value="INFO" />
    <appender-ref ref="RollingLogFileAppender" />
    <appender-ref ref="ConsoleAppender" />
  </root>
</log4net>
And the DebugFilter:
    /// 
    /// log4net filter which allows logging in DEBUG mode only.
    /// 
    public class DebugFilter : FilterSkeleton
    {
        public override FilterDecision Decide(LoggingEvent loggingEvent)
        {
#if DEBUG
            return FilterDecision.Neutral;
#else
            return FilterDecision.Deny;
#endif
        }
    }