Having a log per day

Question

Currently my application is using log4net to log errors, the web.config for this is as followed:

<log4net>      <appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender">         <file value="c:/paypal/logs/gateway.log" />         <appendToFile value="true" />         <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">             <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] – %message%newline" />         </layout>     </appender>     <root>         <level value="DEBUG" />         <appender-ref ref="FileAppender" />     </root> </log4net> 

However, the problem with this is that everyday the logs always go to gateway.log

Does anybody know a way to have a different log file per day using log4net?

Ideally I don't want to have to manually edit the web.config every night using a scheduled task.

Answer 1

You should use RollingFileAppender with rollingStyle Date and datePattern yyyyMMdd (this will roll every day).

Example of configuration:

<appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">     <file value="c:/paypal/logs/gateway.log" />     <appendToFile value="true" />     <rollingStyle value="Date" />     <datePattern value="yyyyMMdd" />     <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">         <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] – %message%newline" />     </layout> </appender> 

UPDATE: I think a better way is to include the date into file name. And use datePattern value only to show when new log file should be created.

<appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">   <file type="log4net.Util.PatternString" value="c:/paypal/logs/gateway_%date{yyyyMMdd}.log" />   <appendToFile value="true" />   <rollingStyle value="Date" />   <datePattern value="yyyyMMdd" />   <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">     <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] – %message%newline" />   </layout> </appender> 

In this case all your files will have name like gateway_20120427.log.

Answer 2

Like using the RollingFileAppender

<appender name="RollingLogFileAppenderOutput" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">     <file type="log4net.Util.PatternString" value="c:\my.log" />     <appendToFile value="true" />     <rollingStyle value="Date" />     <datePattern value="yyyyMMdd'.log'" />     <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">      <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level - %message%newline" />     </layout> </appender> 

edit

This is the whole log4net configuration section to roll everyday, the same as @lazyberezovsky answered just adding the log4net and root for clarification

edit2 <file value="c:/paypal/logs/gateway_" /> this will create a file named 'gateway_' and at the end of the day (2012-04-27) it will be renamed as gateway_20120427.log and the next day (2012-04-28) it will create again the file gateway_ and at the end it'll create gateway_20120428.log.

<log4net>      <appender name="RollingLogFileAppenderOutput" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">         <file value="c:/paypal/logs/gateway_" />         <appendToFile value="true" />         <rollingStyle value="Date" />         <datePattern value="yyyyMMdd'.log'" />         <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">             <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level - %message%newline" />         </layout>     </appender>      <root>         <level value="DEBUG" />         <appender-ref ref="RollingLogFileAppenderOutput" />     </root> </log4net>