Configuration-API.md

NLog can be also configured programmatically.

Use

In order to configure NLog in code you must complete the following steps:

1. Create a LoggingConfiguration object that will hold the configuration
2. Create one or more targets (objects of classes inheriting from Target)
3. Set the properties of the targets
4. Define logging rules through LoggingRule objects and add them to the configuration's LoggingRules
5. Activate the configuration by assigning the configuration object to LogManager.Configuration

Examples

Multiple targets

This sample demonstrates the programmatic creation of two targets: one is a colored console, and the other is a file and rules that send messages to them for messages whose level is Debug or higher.

using NLog;
using NLog.Targets;
using NLog.Config;
using NLog.Win32.Targets;

class Example
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Step 1. Create configuration object 
        var config = new LoggingConfiguration();

        // Step 2. Create targets and add them to the configuration 
        var consoleTarget = new ColoredConsoleTarget();
        config.AddTarget("console", consoleTarget);

        var fileTarget = new FileTarget();
        config.AddTarget("file", fileTarget);

        // Step 3. Set target properties 
        consoleTarget.Layout = @"${date:format=HH\:mm\:ss} ${logger} ${message}";
        fileTarget.FileName = "${basedir}/file.txt";
        fileTarget.Layout = "${message}";

        // Step 4. Define rules
        var rule1 = new LoggingRule("*", LogLevel.Debug, consoleTarget);
        config.LoggingRules.Add(rule1);

        var rule2 = new LoggingRule("*", LogLevel.Debug, fileTarget);
        config.LoggingRules.Add(rule2);

        // Step 5. Activate the configuration
        LogManager.Configuration = config;

        // Example usage
        Logger logger = LogManager.GetLogger("Example");
        logger.Trace("trace log message");
        logger.Debug("debug log message");
        logger.Info("info log message");
        logger.Warn("warn log message");
        logger.Error("error log message");
        logger.Fatal("fatal log message");
    }
}

Passing Custom Values

Another simple example of additional functionality in code is the use of the ${eventproperties} layout renderer.