Develop Reference

Custom Column(s) with MsSqlServer Sink and AppSettings

I've got an application that runs without problem with the File and Console Sinks and now I'm trying to add the MSSqlServer Sink.
Looking at the documentation on Github I've got my application to write to the SQL Database as well as the other sinks.
<add key="serilog:write-to:MSSqlServer.connectionString" value="Server=servername;Database=databasename;User Id=userid;Password=password;"/>
<add key="serilog:write-to:MSSqlServer.tableName" value="Logs"/>
<add key="serilog:write-to:MSSqlServer.autoCreateSqlTable" value="true"/>
One improvement is I'd like to add a custom column to the Logs table that Serilog uses to store a number indicating a unique RunId for my application. The idea being that a simple query would allow grouping by RunId to see all messages for that one run.
So I added the following, based on the documentation (and I haven't been able to find any other examples) as it seemed logical:
<add key="serilog:write-to:MSSqlServer.columnOptions.ColumnName" value="RunId"/>
<add key="serilog:write-to:MSSqlServer.columnOptions.PropertyName" value="RunId"/>
<add key="serilog:write-to:MSSqlServer.columnOptions.DataType" value="SqlDbType.Int"/>
<add key="serilog:write-to:MSSqlServer.columnOptions.DataLength" value="32"/>
and then in my code all I need to do is:
Log.Information("{RunId}{Message}", RunId, Message);
to see a new entry with {RunId} in the RunId column and {Message} in the Message column... however everytime I do this nothing is written to the RunId column, it remains as NULL whereas every log message the console/file has is also duplicated in the Table.
So it seems logging is working, it must be the keys wrong and I'm really not sure what should be used.
Would anyone be able to point me in the direction I need to be going or where I've gone wrong?
Thank you.

Logging definitely was working but some digging and finally I found out I had two issues:
Permissions on database where insuffident for the user serilog was using, and
AppSettings settings I was using were wrong
#1 was easy enough to fix, I created a dedicated Serilog account for this database and fixed the permissions as per documentation.
#2 however was very frustrating but eventually I was able to get the following to work:
<configSections>
<section name="MSSqlServerSettingsSection" type="Serilog.Configuration.MSSqlServerConfigurationSection, Serilog.Sinks.MSSqlServer"/>
</configSections>
<MSSqlServerSettingsSection DisableTriggers="false" ClusteredColumnstoreIndex="false" PrimaryKeyColumnName="Id">
<!-- SinkOptions parameters -->
<TableName Value="Logs"/>
<Columns>
<add ColumnName="RunId" DataType="int"/>
</Columns>
</MSSqlServerSettingsSection>
On compile and execution my program will now create the Logs table in the database and then create a RunId column which I have been able to populate with a {RunId} expression in my Log.Debug() calls.
FWIW: I hope this will be helpful and if I can work out how I'll see if I can add this to documentation as an example of using AppSettings for this use case. Searching this question most people seem to be using JSON and not AppSettings.

Error using CyberSource's API for .NET

I get an error when I use CyberSource's tutorial/demo code from their documentation.
http://apps.cybersource.com/library/documentation/dev_guides/Simple_Order_API_Clients/Client_SDK_SO_API.pdf Page: 220
Any help here? I have no clue what keysDirectory is

hi all you have to do is add the key in config file like so...
<add key="cybs.keysDirectory" value="c:\keys\"/>
<add key="cybs.keyFilename" value="????"/>

API WiktionaryNET

I am trying to use the Wiktionary's API trying to know if some words are defined or not.
I have seen the open source's WiktionaryNET and they use this code:
In my console code:
var word = Wiktionary.Define("clean");
foreach (var def in word.Definition)
Console.WriteLine(def);
In the app.config:
<system.net>
<defaultProxy useDefaultCredentials="true" />
</system.net>
I use the same things but the result is always "Definition.Count = 0"
Someone know, how can I use or set up to get results?
Thanks in advance for your help.

I'm the implementer of this library. Thanks for pointing this out. I'll try to explain what happened and what can you do if you really need this fixed right now.
The wiktionary response is in JSON format but it's terrible to parse. It's actually one single blub of text. What happened is that the JSON response from wiktionary was modified since the wiktionaryNET was implemented. It now contains an additional field. The wiktionaryNET parser mistakenly interprets this as the content it was supposed to parse in the first place. The result is an empty response from the library.
You can download the project from GitHub. Then go to WiktionaryJsonQuery.cs and modify the AddQuery statements to include the rawcontinue:
AddQuery("format=json");
AddQuery("rawcontinue"); // <-- add this line
AddQuery("action=query");
AddQuery("prop=revisions");
AddQuery("rvprop=content");
AddQuery("titles=" + word);
Build the project and add the resulting dll to your project.
Please note this is only in beta.

How to write an URI string in App.Config

I am making a Windows Service. The Service has to donwload something every night, and therefor I want to place the URI in the App.Config in case I later need to change it.
I want to write an URI in my App.Config. What makes it invalid and how should i approach this?
<appSettings>
<add key="fooUriString"
value="https://foo.bar.baz/download/DownloadStream?id=5486cfb8c50c9f9a2c1bc43daf7ddeed&login=null&password=null"/>
</appSettings>
My errors:
- Entity 'login' not defined
- Expecting ';'
- Entity 'password' not defined
- Application Configuration file "App.config" is invalid. An error occurred

You haven't properly encoded the ampersands in your URI. Remember that app.config is an XML file, so you must conform to XML's requirements for escaping (e.g. & should be &, < should be < and > should be >).
In your case, it should look like this:
<appSettings>
<add
key="fooUriString"
value="https://foo.bar.baz/download/DownloadStream?id=5486cfb8c50c9f9a2c1bc43daf7ddeed&login=null&password=null"
/>
</appSettings>
But in general, if you wanted to store a string that looked like "I <3 angle bra<kets & ampersands >>>" then do this:
<appSettings>
<add
key="someString"
value="I <3 angle bra<kets & ampersands >>>"
/>
</appSettings>
void StringEncodingTest() {
String expected = "I <3 angle bra<kets & ampersands >>>";
String actual = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["someString"];
Debug.Assert.AreEqual( expected, actual );
}

& should work just fine, Wikipedia has a List of predefined entities in XML.

Try using: & in place of & in the url

Error parsing AppSettings value with a query string

In my AppSettings in web.config, I have something like this:
<appSettings>
<add key="ExternalSystemUrl" value="http://example.com/page.aspx?id={0}&action=eat&object=bacon" />
</appSettings>
However, it seems that when an ampersand (&) is included in an AppSettings value, ASP.NET throws the following error:
An error occurred while parsing EntityName
Why does this happen, and how can I include URLs like this in App.config?

Replace & with & (escape it):
<add
key="ExternalSystemUrl"
value="http://example.com/page.aspx?id={0}&action=eat&object=bacon" />
That's the common requirement for any valid XML file.
See Where can I get a list of the XML document escape characters?

You can Try using & instead.

In XML an ampersand tells the parser "the data immediately following this ampersand is an entity which needs to be translated." If the data immediately following is not a valid XML entity, then you get this error. If possible, use & for your ampersand within the XML.