How Beneficial is NLog for .Net Developers?

Recently, Microsoft redesigned the core architecture of .NET Framework and ASP.NET. The developers can now use .NET Core as a cross-platform and open source framework. Likewise, they can use ASP.NET Core to build a variety of cloud-based web applications and mobile backends within a shorter amount of time. Microsoft further allows .NET Core developers to work with an array of popular third-party frameworks and libraries.

The .NET developers have option to use a number of third-party logging and tracing tools. Each logging tool is designed with features to record detailed information about the execution of various .NET applications. The information recorded by these tools help programmers or testers to perform debugging and testing more efficiently. They can use the logs to identify the defects in an application, monitoring/auditing the live software, and debug the application code after deployment.

As a widely used .NET logging library, NLog enables developers and testers to generate high quality logs for application developed with .NET, Silverlight, or Xamarin. It has the capability to process the diagnostic messages generated by various .NET languages including C# and VB.NET. The logging platform further augments each diagnostic message with contextual information like data and time, environment, severity, process and thread. Also, NLog further allows users to display, store, and pass the log messages to multiple destinations and by targeting over 30 targets.

Understanding Important Features of NLog

Simple Configuration

The users can download and install NLog in a number of ways. A user has option to download the source code of the .NET logging library as a zip file from Github or avail NLog as binary packages from Nuget. He can further configure NLog in two distinct ways. Based on his preference, a user can configure the .NET logging library either through a single XML file or programmatically. Also, he can make changes to the configuration without restarting the applications frequently.

Templatable Log Messages

NLog further enables developers and testers to enhance the quality of log messages by converting them into templates. The users can easily template the log messages by using a variety of layout renderers. Each layout renderer is designed as a template macro used in Layouts. As an attribute of targets, the layouts determine the format in which the library will log the information. NLog further allows developers to create custom layout renderers according to their specific needs.

Generate Detailed Logs

The developers can use NLog to add sophisticated tracing code to .NET applications. In addition to processing the diagnostic message generated by various .NET languages, NLog further augments each message with contextual information, and indicates its severity by linking it to a log level. NLog makes the logs elaborate and comprehensive by augmenting contextual information like current data and time, stack trace/information, values of environmental variables, exceptions, machine, process and thread names. Also, it indicates the severity of the log by associating with any of the six levels – trace, debug, info, warn, error and fatal.

Over 30 Targets

NLog supports over thirty targets for a single message. Each developer has option to decide the way the diagnostic messages from their source to the targets simply by defining rules. For instance, a programmer can write rules to display, store and pass the log messages to varying targets including files, database, console, email message, and event logs. He has option to store the logs in a database, write the logs to multiple files, write the event logs to remote or local logs, or format the logs with a command-line console. Likewise, he can trigger an email each time an application error occurs. The ASP.NET developers even have option to get the log messages written through a built-in trace provided by the web framework.

Option to Customize and Extend

In addition to adding contextual information to each log and target multiple destinations, the users also have option to write custom targets and use custom values. The developers can further create and registered the custom tags without putting extra time and effort. But they can write custom logs to get log messages written on non-standard targets and work with new protocols currently not supported by NLog. Also, they can take advantage of a special kind of targets called wrappers. Unlike targets, wrappers lack the capability to perform logging. But the developers can use wrappers to emulate and modify behaviour of other loggers. They also have option to use a variety of wrappers according to their specific requirements.

However, NLog is yet to support .NET Core. The upcoming version 4.4 of the .NET logging platform will support .NET Core and its new features. At present, NLog supports versions 3.5, 4, 4.5, and 4.6 of .NET Framework; versions 4 and 5 of Silverlight; Windows Phone 8; and Xamarin iOS and Xamarin Android. Hence, the developers can use NLog to debug and test a variety of applications more efficiently.