How do I automatically tail (delete) older logs using Serilog in a .Net WPF application?

Question

I'm using Serliog in a .Net WPF application.

Is there a way that I can "tail" (delete) the log files automatically when they are over N days old?

Answer 1

According to the documentation, the default value of retainedFileCountLimit is 31 so only the most recent 31 files are kept by default.

To change the amount of files kept in code:

var log = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.File("log.txt", retainedFileCountLimit: 42)
    .CreateLogger();

pass null to remove the limit.

In XML <appSettings> configuration:

<appSettings>
  <add key="serilog:using:File" value="Serilog.Sinks.File" />
  <add key="serilog:write-to:File.path" value="log.txt" />
  <add key="serilog:write-to:File.retainedFileCountLimit" value="42"/>
</appSettings>

and pass an empty string to remove the limit.

In JSON appsettings.json configuration

{
  "Serilog": {
    "WriteTo": [
      {
        "Name": "File",
        "Args": {
          "path": "log.txt",
          "retainedFileCountLimit": "42"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

and pass an empty string to remove the limit. Note that I have not tested the JSON configuration.

Answer 2

https://github.com/serilog/serilog-sinks-rollingfile/blob/dev/README.md Look there. You can configure autocreation of a new log file every day and also you can set how many of them you want to be kept