Removing Default Properties in Serilog Output

Question

In the Serilog output in a file, I see that the default is

{
    "Timestamp": "2016-05-28T21:21:59.0932348+08:00",
    "Level": "Information",
    "MessageTemplate": "Processed {@Number} records in {@Time} ms",
    "Properties": {
        "Number": 500,
        "Time": 120
    }
}

Is there a way to remove the Timestamp, level, messagetemplate, and properties so that I"m left with this only

{
    "Number": 500,
    "Time": 120
}

The Log.Logger is assigned as such

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.Sink(new FileSink(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["serilogPath"], new JsonFormatter(), null))
    .CreateLogger();

Thanks

Answer 1

From looking at the source code, it doesn't look like the JsonFormatter supports skipping those default properties. You could create your own ITextFormatter that does what you're looking for. Here's a quick example (that should not be used in production because it doesn't do any escaping -- it's just for demo purposes):

public class SOFormatter : ITextFormatter
{
    public void Format(LogEvent logEvent, TextWriter output)
    {
        output.Write("{");
        foreach (var p in logEvent.Properties)
        {
            output.Write("\"{0}\" : {1}, ", p.Key, p.Value);
        }
        output.Write("}");
    }
}

Answer 2

This question is old but now there is some easy solution for it, so I want to share them.

1. Make sure you have this Serilog.Expressions Nuget Package (version 3.3 at least)

2. You can now configure the ExpressionTemplate in code, here is an example:

   Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
       .WriteTo.Console(formatter: new ExpressionTemplate("{ {@t, @mt, @r, @l: if @l = 'Information' then undefined() else @l, @x, ..@p} }\n"))
       .CreateLogger();
   

3. Or you can configure ExpressionTemplate in the appSettings.json, like this

   {
     "Name": "Console",
     "Args": {
       "formatter": {
         "type": "Serilog.Templates.ExpressionTemplate, Serilog.Expressions",
         "template": "[{@t:HH:mm:ss} {@l:u3} {Coalesce(SourceContext, '<none>')}] {@m}\n{@x}"
       }
     }
   }
   

Notes

1. The formatter word in the appSettings is the name of an argument to a method, So it could be different depending on the sink you are using.
   For example, I used Mongodb Sink, so the name of the argument was mongoDBJsonFormatter for me

2. I am not explaining the syntax of the ExpressionTemplate here, you can consult the following links for more info on that.

3. here is a good article which explain this in more details

4. here is Some documentation