SuperJason’s Personal Blog

Log4net 1.2.10 was released today.  It’s the .NET logging DLL that I use in just about everything.  Their last version works great, but it was a little troubling since it was labeled “beta”.  People can finally stop asking where the non-beta version is.

Another handy utility that is very useful when used with Log4net is Chainsaw (get it, cutting through logs).  For instructions on how to get it working with Log4net, check out this blog post.  Basically, I have a config file for Chainsaw that looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><!DOCTYPE log4j:configuration SYSTEM "log4j.dtd"><log4j:configuration xmlns:log4j="http://jakarta.apache.org/log4j/" debug="false"> <!-- Allow Chainsaw to receive and process UDP messages on the fly --> <plugin name="UDPReceiver" class="org.apache.log4j.net.UDPReceiver">  <param name="Port" value="8090" /> </plugin>

 <!-- Allow Chainsaw to parse log messages --> <plugin name="LOGFILE" class="org.apache.log4j.varia.LogFilePatternReceiver">  <param name="fileURL" value="file:///C:/Log.txt" />  <param name="timestampFormat" value="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss,SSS" />  <param name="logFormat" value="TIMESTAMP [THREAD] LEVEL LOGGER NDC - MESSAGE" />  <param name="name" value="WebApps Log file" />  <param name="tailing" value="true" /> </plugin></log4j:configuration>

This configuration file also lets me open up my actual log files, and it turns them into a nice format that makes it easy to filter, search etc.  I love the fact that it will recieve UDP messages and let me see what is going on in real time.  It’s pretty awesome for long running services, etc.

If you’re not using log4net in your .NET projects, do yourself a favor and start now.  You’ll thank me when the customer has an issue and it saves your %^#.