Log4Net: Log with UTC times

Question

Using log4net 1.2.11.0 w/ .NET, how can I get the RollingFileAppender to output UTC dates?

According to Apache it should be as easy as:

<dateTimeStrategy type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender+UniversalDateTime" /> 

Unfortunately this is not working.

The entirety of my log4net configuration is:

  <log4net>     <appender name="RollingFile" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">       <file value="Log-.txt" />       <rollingStyle value="Date" />       <datePattern value="yyyyMMdd"/>       <PreserveLogFileNameExtension value="true" />       <staticLogFileName value="false"/>       <appendToFile value="true" />       <maxSizeRollBackups value="10" />       <dateTimeStrategy type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender+UniversalDateTime" />       <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">         <conversionPattern value="%date %-5level %logger - %message%newline" />       </layout>     </appender>     <root>       <!-- Options are "ALL", "DEBUG", "INFO", "WARN", "ERROR", "FATAL" and "OFF". -->       <level value="DEBUG" />       <appender-ref ref="RollingFile" />     </root>   </log4net> 

Using a decompiler I can see that the log4net dll has the type 'UniversalDateTime' as a private class inside of RollingFileAppender.

Answer 1

Be aware that the changes are much different when using the AdoNetAppender. In that case, you need to change the parameter settings:

<parameter>    <parameterName value="@log_date" />    <dbType value="DateTime" />    <layout type="log4net.Layout.RawUtcTimeStampLayout" />    <!--<layout type="log4net.Layout.RawTimeStampLayout" />--> </parameter> 

This change will now write the correct UTC value for the logDate field.