.Net Core console app with NLOG

In this post I am going to create simple minimalistic dotnet core console application and integrate it with nlog.

Let's create a folder for our project. I am going to name it nlog_console.

$mkdir nlog_console
$cd nlog_console

Now we create dotnet core console app project and if you have Visual Studio Code installed run the second command below.

$dotnet new console
$code . &

Now lets add nlog package to a project.

$dotnet add package nlog

This will add the following code to our project file.

	<ItemGroup>
	<PackageReference Include="nlog" Version="4.5.6" />
	</ItemGroup>

view raw nlog_proj_ref.csproj hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Nlog framework requires configuration file 'nlog.config' to specify logger tagerts and rules. We can copy paste the sample nlog.config file from this github page or use one below.

	<xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
	<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd"
	xsi:schemaLocation="NLog NLog.xsd"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	autoReload="true"
	internalLogFile="console-example-internal.log"
	internalLogLevel="Info" >
	<targets>
	<target xsi:type="File" name="file"
	fileName="console-example.log"
	layout="${date}|${level:uppercase=true}|${message} ${exception}|${logger}|${all-event-properties}" />
	<target xsi:type="Console" name="console"
	layout="${date}|${level:uppercase=true}|${message} ${exception}|${logger}|${all-event-properties}" />
	</targets>
	<rules>
	<logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="file,console" />
	</rules>
	</nlog>

view raw nlog_sample.config hosted with ❤ by GitHub

'nlog.config' file need to be copied to destination directory during project build. To achieve it add the code below to a project file.

	<ItemGroup>
	<None Include="nlog.config" CopyToOutputDirectory="Always" />
	<ItemGroup>

view raw copy_to_output_dir.csproj hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now we need to add actual logging code to a program. Copy paste the Program class code below.

	using System;
	namespace dotnetcore_nlog
	{
	class Program
	{
	private static NLog.Logger log = NLog.LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();
	static void Main(string[] args)
	{
	Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
	log.Trace("Loggin trace.");
	}
	}
	}

view raw hello_nlog.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

To build and run our console app run code below or add launch.json config to Visual Studio Code.

$dotnet build
$dotnet run

You should see the following output and log file created in the same directory as our console app.

2018/06/19 18:48:13.130|TRACE|Loggin trace. |nlog_console.Program|

References:

• Getting started with .NET Core 2 Console application
• Sample dotnet core console app with nlog on github