I am developing a C# application in Mono and trying to use log4net. The logger works just fine when I load the configuration manually however, I would like something more elegant.
In the log4net documentation it states that a config can be loaded from the assembly by using the following (or similar) line:
[assembly: log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator(ConfigFileExtension="log4net",Watch=true)]
I have ensured the config file gets moved to the build directory and has that extension. I have also made sure the AssemblyInfo.cs is marked "Application Definition" in MonoDevelop. I do not know why this is not working. Does anybody have any ideas?
BTW: I have searched all over the place trying to find an answer. I also tried loading the config from a resource and that did not want to work either.
It is possible, but awkward, to use multiple config files with log4net. See the discussion here: log4net - configure using multiple configuration files
Are you doing logging within your .exe and your .dll?
Can you make do with a single config file?
Bear in mind this section from the documentation: "if you use configuration attributes you must invoke log4net to allow it to read the attributes. A simple call to LogManager.GetLogger will cause the attributes on the calling assembly to be read and processed. Therefore it is imperative to make a logging call as early as possible during the application start-up, and certainly before any external assemblies have been loaded and invoked."
Try and distill the issue down to a simple example.
Ensure your config file is name exename.exe.log4net
Ensure that you place the AssemblyAttribute you have in the quesion, into the AssemblyInfo.cs of your .exe
Ensure that you make a call to LogManager.GetLogger ASAP in your .exe, before invoking any code from your .DLL
Related
I have the following projects:
MVC
Console application
Class library
Windows forms application
COM Library
All these applications need to use a single configuration file. As far as I understand, app.config files are for windows, console applications and class libraries when web.config are for the web projects.
The same configuration need to be accessible in all of these projects. I have read that it's suggested to use machine configuration file, but we won't always have access to that, therefore configuration files must reside within our solution.
I don't fully understand how the configuration files get build. Currently I wrote a simple project where I have the following:
Class library to store for serving configuration files. A have attempted to do this through reflection.
Windows application that should read the app.config from a class library.
When I execute the following code I expect to get a configuration file with test values:
_applicationSettings = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(WCSConfiguration)).Location
).AppSettings;
What I get instead is an empty application settings file.
Class library has the following App.config:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="TestTextKey" value="TestTextValue"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
I have tried using .GetExecutingAssembly() method which I expect to return an assembly of a code that's currently being executed. This didn't work, instead it has returned the assembly of a Windows application.
GetAssembly(type(WCSConfiguration)) has returned a right assembly, however, the configuration file was missing in the bin/debug directory.
I have a feeling that either I'm doing something fundamentally wrong or Microsoft hasn't made this flexible enough. I have also tried to search MSDN for explanation, but this hasn't been documented well IMO.
I have also left COM in bold because I'm not sure whether any config files would be available to COM library at all. Firstly I would like to get other projects to work.
I understand that this is a lot of information. Any help would be greately appreciated. Previously we have chosen to use registry, but this has turned out to be nasty, mainly because access to registry is not available in some scenarios. Additionally we now have multiple versions of the applications and switching between branches is a half an hour job :(
Thank you
Edit:
If I add the dll's config sections to app.config that means that these settings will be available only from that application. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Example that I have provided is a scaled down version. In total there are about ten windows applications, a single MVC project and range of class libraries all of which need to make a use of that configuration.
Configuration settings are mostly connection strings, lookup values that do not belong in the database and few other minor settings. Main concern at this point are the connection strings. There are few minor releases of the application where each release points to a different database.
What I'd like to get out of this is a good workable solution so that it can be posted online and other people who come across the same problem won't spend days of their time.
Morale of the story IMO:
Use both App.config and Web.config to store location of your own configuration file.
Write simple XML serializer to read/write config and DLL for serving the configuration.
COM objects are a long story and were implemented with a "hack", since neither App.config or Web.config are available in COM DLLs.
Note ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration needs to be passed the filename of the config file, not the executable.
You'll need to append .config to the path of the executable. To get the exe assembly use Assembly.GetEntryAssembly.
If you have configuration settings you want to share across multiple pieces of code that are not all in the same .NET Process, I would suggest:
Put them in their own myStuff.config.
In .NET code use ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration to open and access myStuff.config.
Non-.NET code will need to use an XML parser to load and read the settings. Unless you configuration structures are very complex this shouldn't be too hard to encapsulate.
Put the path to myStuff.config in the app.config of each application sharing this configuration for .NET applications. (Not non-.NET applications: depends on what works for that application.)
Another approach, where the configuration structure is the same but the settings are per-application would be a custom configuration section.
A couple of general points -- add the dll's config sections to the app.config file rather than relying on the dll's config file to get picked up; and app.config actually gets renamed to .exe.config on build, so you need to make sure a file of that name's available.
Also -- you're not constrained to using the default config loading mechanism to configure your application. You could create your own configuration classes and just use XML serialization to deserialize and configure at will.
I have a class library for which i want to have configuration file.
The purpose of the configuration file is to have the path and other parameters.
Also i wanted to use the Enterprise logging block in Class library.
Here is my scenario:
This is a Class library and will be deployed in GAC
Enterprise logging blocks uses app.Config.
My calling application which consumes the dll is BizTalk 2010.
I don't have permission to modify the BizTalk's application config file
What i am trying to achieve is:
My Dll needs to use a configuration file which has many configuration parameters
Also as i understand, I need app.config for Enterprise Logging
How can i achieve this?
Any ideas?
Cheers,
Karthik
The easiest way is to use the machine config. You also have the option to put your configuration in a separate file and then reference it from the machine config.
You can also set the values in code but that sorta defeats the purpose of using a config file to begin with.
Modify your class library to open and read config file from specific location.
Do you have access to the calling application's code?
If so, maybe you can explicitly load the config file as suggested by Marc_s's solution?
Just an idea.
I am building an application that calls upon a compiled executable. Said executable's source code project file is referenced by the solution file for the parent application. The child executable is a stand alone command line application. The parent is a effectively a GUI wrapper to the console application. When I compile the console application, I have access to all of log4net's functionality that has been built into the application. However, when I compile the parent project that references the console application's source code files, everything runs correctly but no logs are generated. What would cause this error to occur, and how can this occurrence be fixed? log4net's internal debugging mechanism doesn't throw any messages.
For log4net to start logging within the referenced assembly you will have to:
Call the Configure() function of log4net by either calling log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure() when your application starts, or by adding [assembly: log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator(Watch=true)] to the AssemblyInfo.cs file of your wrapper application.
Create an log4net configuration section in the app.config for your GUI wrapper if you haven't already done so. Add an app.config file to your project, and copy your log4net configuration information from the referenced library into it.
Ensure that the account running the application has access to write and create files within the log directory (assuming your using file-based logging).
For more info about setting up your config see: http://logging.apache.org/log4net/release/manual/configuration.html
I know it's too late but anyway just for reference.
Set log4net.Internal.Debug = true in your application and you might see the problem on the console. (do this programmatically since your application might not be able to find it's config file, which was what happened in my case)
On the Process p, after you exec the process using p.start() try to write the stdout to console with this;
Console.write(p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd());
You should be able to see the problem. (why log4net isn't getting configured or why it isn't logging)
In my case it was looking for the app.config file in the parent process's working directory. (my app and it's config are present elsewhere on the file system)
I'm having trouble seeing how I can use logging in my setup / install project.
I've got Log4net working on installed applications, but I can't seem to log the install / uninstall process.
My main problem is with the logging config file.
I suppose it's a bit of a chicken/egg scenario - theres no way for me to grab the just-installed logging file?
I have a method that finds the root directory of my app, using - AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetupInformation.ApplicationBase
and i normally use this to locate the logging config file.
This directory however, during install, is not where it is installing (obviously) it is somewhere within the windows filesystem.
Does anybody have any ideas to this?
Consider configuring log4net in code and not using a file or storing the configuration as a file resource of your custom action assembly and using XmlConfigurator.Configure(Stream configStream) overload.
Of course if you want to reuse the configuration of the application this is not a clean solution.
Also checkout this question:
log4net pure code configuration with filter in c#
When executing MSI's you are bound to msiexec's logging mechanisms (which is not as friendly as log4net).
I have a config file in my C# class library called MyLibrary.config, in vs 2008.
I created another project, say a simple console app, add reference by "Browsing" the MyLibrary.dll in the bin directory of the class library project, and when I compile, the MyLibrary.config is not including in the bin directory of the output in the console app.
How can I set it so I can include it when I reference the dll?
Cheers
You can't. Your console application is expecting to find a config file with prefix the same as the name as the console application (MyConsoleApplication.exe -> MyConsoleApplication.exe.config.).
In some situations you can share a config file by using the file attribute on the appSettings element:
<appSettings
file="path">
</appSettings>
Note that path is relative to the executing assembly.
As a side note, DLLs do not even use the config file that you've defined in the project. Again, configuration information is read from the a config file with prefix the same as the executing assembly. Thus, even when MyLibrary.dll tries to yank configuration information out of a config file, it will be reading the config file for the executing assembly, not MyLibrary.dll.config.
For more on how config files work, see MSDN.
The standard way to use a config file is to have it the same as the executable, adding a reference to a dll will not include its config file and as far as I know dll's don't load config files on their own, rather they rely on the executable that reference them.
Beyond not being able to do this, I would also advise against this approach.
Rather than trying to tighly couple your settings to the DLL library, consider more of a "Dependency Injection" type approach - i.e. where you pass in the value dependencies (i.e. settings) to the code you are calling (i.e. the library).
The advantage in this is you are not tied to a single method of storing settings. You can then use a database, different config file formats... even hard-coding. It also makes unit testing easier by removing the external file dependency.
There are different ways to implement this, however one example is to pass the configuration settings into the constructor of the class(s) that uses them.