Bill,

Add your custom columns to one of the properties collections, for example GlobalContext (or ThreadContext), for example:

log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["CustomCol1"] = "My custom column 1 value";

log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["CustomCol2"] = "My custom column 1 value";

Then pick up the value in the layout with the %property{propertyName} syntax, for example:

%property{CustomCol1}

BR,

Georg

http://www.l4ndash.com – Log4Net Dashboard

Sure.  Here’s how you can create a custom dynamic field:

Put this in your application’s log4net setup:

// This is a way of creating a dynamic property (found in ActiveProperties.cs)

// To use it, put a reference to the property in the appender's property:  %property{custom1}

// It isn't actually used for anything right now, but I wanted it left in as an example

log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["custom1"] = new Custom1();

log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["custom2"] = new Custom2();

log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["custom2"] = new Custom3();

And then add this class to your project:

// You can use this class to create an active property to be used in the log4net configuration

//

// In your application setup routine you would create the property:

//     log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["sampler"] = new SampleProperty();

//

// Then in the log4net.xml file, a pattern might contain this reference:  %property{sampler}

//

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

namespace Genesis.Logging {

    public static class ActiveProperties {

        public static string custom1 = "custom1 value";

        public static string custom2 = "custom2 value";

        public static string custom3 = "custom3 value";

    }

    public class Custom1 {

        public override string ToString() {

            return ActiveProperties.custom1;

        }

    }

    public class Custom2 {

        public override string ToString() {

            return ActiveProperties.custom2;

        }

    }

    public class Custom3 {

        public override string ToString() {

            return ActiveProperties.custom3;

        }

    }

}

Then, in your InfoFormat method, just set the sampleProperty to whatever you passed in, just before you log the error.

That’s why the dynamic setting is so useful.  If you were just going to set it to a value that doesn’t change, you would do it this way:

log4net.GlobalContext.Properties["custom1"] = "custom1 value";

But in the example that I gave, you are setting it not to a value, but to a class.  The ToString() value of the class, can be set dynamically, is what log4net uses to put the values into the %property.

So you can change those values at any time.  Using the class I gave you below, you might put this code in your logging method

public static void MyInfoLoggingMethod(string custom1, string custom2, string custom3, string message) {

    ActiveProperties.sampleProperty = custom1;

    ActiveProperties.sampleProperty = custom2;

    ActiveProperties.sampleProperty = custom3;

    _Log.Info(message);

}

Then when you log your message, those new values would be reflected.

Or am I not understanding what you need?

Oops, sorry, didn’t quite convert everything completely from what I’ve got in my notes.  Should have been…

public static void MyInfoLoggingMethod(string custom1, string custom2, string custom3, string message) {

    ActiveProperties.custom1 = custom1;

    ActiveProperties.custom2 = custom2;

    ActiveProperties.custom3 = custom3;

    _Log.Info(message);

}