Resolve generic Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger<T> with Unity - get InvalidCastException

Question

I am trying to register a generic ILogger (from Microsoft.Extensions.Logging, not from Serilog) in Unity (version 4).

I've got the following class:

public class MyClass
{
    private readonly Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger<MyClass> _logger;

    public MyClass(Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger<MyClass> logger)
    {
        _logger = logger;
    }
}

And the following Unity registrations and test:

// Arrange
IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer();

// provider from Serilog.Extensions.Logging nuget package
var provider = new Serilog.Extensions.Logging.SerilogLoggerProvider();

container.RegisterType(typeof(Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger<>),
    new InjectionFactory((ctr, type, name) =>
    {
        var loggerType = type.GetGenericArguments()[0].FullName;
        Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger logger = provider.CreateLogger(loggerType);
        return logger;
    }));

container.RegisterType<MyClass, MyClass>(); // just for demo purpose. 

// Assert
container.Resolve<MyClass>();

This seems OK to me, too bad I am having the following error when resolving:

Exception is: InvalidCastException - Unable to cast object of type 'Serilog.Extensions.Logging.SerilogLogger' to type 'Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger`1[MyNamespace.MyClass]'.

How to fix this issue?

Full exception:

Microsoft.Practices.Unity.ResolutionFailedException: Resolution of the dependency failed, type = "MyNamespace.MyClass", name = "(none)". Exception occurred while: Resolving parameter "logger" of constructor MyNamespace.MyClass(Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger1[[MyNamespace.MyClass, MyNamespace.Infra.UnitTests, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=edbaf8e9a324553f]] logger). Exception is: InvalidCastException - Unable to cast object of type 'Serilog.Extensions.Logging.SerilogLogger' to type 'Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.ILogger1[MyNamespace.MyClass]'.

Update

when using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection, this works:

// Arrange
var serviceCollection = new Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.ServiceCollection()
    .AddLogging(builder => builder.AddSerilog())
    .AddTransient<MyClass, MyClass>();

var serviceProvider = serviceCollection.BuildServiceProvider();

// Assert
serviceProvider.GetService<MyClass>();

So I try to get this working with Unity instead of Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection

Unfortunately there is no AddSerilog for Unity and I'm bound to Unity

Answer 1

The easiest way I have found is to register a factory and reflect their extension method to do it and get the right response type. This example also expects that you have registered an ILoggerFactory.

_container = new UnityContainer();
_container.RegisterInstance<ILoggerFactory>(new LoggerFactory().AddLog4Net(), new ContainerControlledLifetimeManager());
_container.RegisterFactory(typeof(ILogger<>), null, (c, t, n) =>
        {
            var factory = c.Resolve<ILoggerFactory>();
            var genericType = t.GetGenericArguments().First();
            var mi = typeof(Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.LoggerFactoryExtensions).GetMethods().Single(m => m.Name == "CreateLogger" && m.IsGenericMethodDefinition);
            var gi = mi.MakeGenericMethod(t.GetGenericArguments().First());
            return gi.Invoke(null, new[] { factory });
        });