log4net: Configure to ignore messages from a specific class

Question

Is there a way to have the log4net configuration ignore a specific class? For example, we generally create a log in every class. Similar to this:

private static readonly ILog Log = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger("MyClass");

The problem is MyClass logs an extreme amount of data and it gets hard to find information about other classes. Its another dev that uses MyClass so I cannot just go in and change around the log files, but in my environment I would like to ignore these.

Can I set my configuration file to ignore the messages from a specific class?

Answer 1

Sure, use a filter.

Here's the snippet posted on the blog, for future reference - all credit to the author of that blog post:

<filter type="log4net.Filter.LoggerMatchFilter">
  <!-- allows this sub-namespace to be logged... -->
  <loggerToMatch value="Noisy.Namespace.But.Important" />
</filter>
<filter type="log4net.Filter.LoggerMatchFilter">
  <!-- ...but not the rest of it -->
  <loggerToMatch value="Noisy.Namespace" />
  <acceptOnMatch value="false" />
</filter>

Answer 2

A filter certainly works but I would prefer to turn off the logger (or logger hierarchy) directly like this:

<logger name="YourNameSpace.WithNoLogging" additivity="false">
    <level value="OFF" />        
</logger>
<logger name="MyClass" additivity="false">
    <level value="OFF" />        
</logger>
<root>
    <level value="ALL" />
    <appender-ref ref="YourAppender" />
</root>

Assuming that YourNameSpace.WithNoLogging is a namespace then the shown configuration would disable logging on the entire name space. The second "example" turns off logging for your class (according to your question).