Hi,
I know the primary purpose of Log4Net is logging capability in your
application.  However, I'm wondering if it's also used/recommended for
Reporting?

I've heard talk of people using Log4Net to generate logging information that
they intend to use for creating reports.  Is this a recommended strategy? 
Or should application reporting be kept separate from Log4Net entries?

From what I understand, it's common for Log4Net to be turned off in a
production application and only turned on when required to debug a problem. 
If this is the typical usage, then clearly reporting based on Log4Net would
not be recommended.

If you could clear this for me, it would avoid steering several projects in
the wrong direction.

Thanks.

Hi Dawson,

I have had pretty good results using Log4Net in this fashion.

My setup uses 2 appenders with different level settings.

I have one that logs everything to a log database, and another that only
logs error levels(or higher) by SMTP.

Its worked pretty well for me so far.

Cheers,
Josh

I assume that your reports are based on the logging statements in the DB. 
How do you accomodate for the different information needed for different
reports?  Do you log all the logging data as XML to a single database
column?  If so, how do you take advantage of the query capabilities in the
DB, wouldn't you need to get all the records and then parse the XML for each
record to determine it's type / information?

Also, are there any tools / third-party products out there for generating 
reports based on Log4Net logs?

Thanks for the help,
Daws

Personally I like to give the application/system administrator control
over the log4net configuration. It's up to them to decide where they
want the application logging information to go. One of the main features
of log4net is that the location of the log output can be changed after
the application has been deployed.

My applications do not depend on log4net for their functionality, if I
disable logging my applications still continue to function.

If I have a functional requirement to record specific reporting
information I would probably not use log4net to output it, but would
write it directly to a database. It is possible to configure log4net to
do some of the work for you, but it is designed to support application
logging rather than reporting.

Cheers,
Nicko