Log4Net - Can I have a custom section name in Config

Question

I have a need to use section name other than log4net in the config section. I know this is what we generally use

<section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,log4net" />

But I need to have a section like this

<section name="log2net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,log4net" />

I am working on a sitecore website and it has its own Sitecore.Logging dll which is also derived from log4net. So the Sitecore Logging dll is referring to section log4net in web.config

We have our custom log4net appender that works only with log4net and not with sitecore.logging dll. So I thought I can have two loggers in my project, sitecore.logger and log4net logger. Sitecore.logger uses log4net section so I wanted log4net to use a different section anme like log2net

I tried to use the below code by having log2net section in config.

But I get the error log4net:ERROR XmlHierarchyConfigurator: Xml element is - not a log4net element.

 XmlElement element = (XmlElement)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("log2net");
        log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(element); 

Can anyone help please.

Answer 1

I wasn't able to reproduce the exception you're experiencing but looking at its details and the code of XmlHierarchyConfigurator class, the exception is thrown when the root xml element name is not log4net and this is exactly what you're trying to do.

What you can try to do is to:

1. Read your custom log2net XmlElement
2. Create a new log4net XmlElement
3. Copy all the children of your log2net to the new log4net element
4. Execute XmlConfigurator.Configure() method passing your new log4net element.

XmlElement element = (XmlElement)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("log2net");

XmlElement newLog4net = element.OwnerDocument.CreateElement("log4net");

for (int i = 0; i < element.ChildNodes.Count; i++)
{
    XmlNode child = element.ChildNodes[i];
    newLog4net.AppendChild(child.CloneNode(true));
}

log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(newLog4net);