Log4net appender filename issue

log4net

I have an appender setup like this

<appender name="Scheduler_Appender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
   <file value="c:\temp\ApplicationLog.txt"/>
   <rollingStyle value="Date"/>
   <datePattern value="yyyyMMdd"/>
   <appendToFile value="true"/>
   <staticLogFileName value="true"/>
   <layout type="MinLayout">
    <locationInfo value="true"/>
   </layout>
</appender>

When the log file first gets created the file name is simply ApplicationLog.txt this is correct.

However when the logging rolls – the filename that gets generated is ApplicationLog.txt20100323 (for example), and not ApplicationLog20100323.txt

How can I change the configuration so files are rolled to [FileName][Date].[ext] rather than [FileName].[ext][Date]

Thanks

Update

I tried this, just some experiment, but now its generating files with a .pxp extension for some reason…

<appender name="Scheduler_Appender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
            <file value="c:\temp\Scheduler"/>
            <rollingStyle value="Date"/>
            <datePattern value="yyyyMMdd.txt"/>
            <appendToFile value="true"/>
            <staticLogFileName value="false"/>
            <layout type="MinLayout">

            </layout>
        </appender>

Best Answer

I believe the setting you want is PreserveLogFileNameExtension:

<appender name="Scheduler_Appender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
     ...
     <PreserveLogFileNameExtension value="true" />

Note: this property is not available in the currently released binary (version 1.2.10.0) so you would have to grab the latest source and go from there.

Related Solutions

Log4net vs. Nlog

I was recently tasked to "prototype up some loggin'" for an upcoming project. I didn't have any logging framework experience. I researched, ran through tutorials, made toy apps, etc. on Log4Net, NLog, and Enterprise Library for a few days. Came back 3-4 weeks later and put them together into a cohesive demo. Hopefully some of this is useful to you.

My recommendation for our project is this:

Use a logging facade (e.g. Common.Logging, SimpleLoggingFacade) to avoid direct dependencies.
If we end up using Enterprise Library for other facilities, then use it for Logging, too.
If we end up using something with a dependency on Log4Net, use Log4Net.
If none of the above, use NLog. Which I'd prefer.

That's based on these findings (opinions!):

All 3 frameworks are capable and can do some sophisticated things. We want a quality solution, but frankly don't need ultra high performance or 60 types of event sinks.
All 3 have very similar basic concepts.
Each has its own cool tricks, like really advanced routing, or dynamic log filenames, file truncating, etc.
All 3 are pretty well documented in their own way.
For a complete newb like me, they were all a little awkward initially. No drastic differences here for the basics. I got over it.
When revisiting things a few weeks later, NLog was clearly the easiest to resume. I needed very little brush up on it. With Log4Net, I had to revisit a few online examples to get going. With EntLib, I gave up and did the tutorials all over again from scratch - I was totally lost.
I couldn't figure out how to get EntLib to do some things like log to the database. It might be easy, but it was beyond my time limit.
Log4Net and NLog have a small in-code footprint. EntLib is spammy, but I'd use a facade over it anyway.
I accidentally mis-configured EntLib and it told me at run time. Log4Net didn't. I didn't have an accidental mis-config with NLog.
EntLib comes with a nice looking app.config editor, which you 100% need. NLog has a config file schema so you get "intellisense". Log4Net comes with nada.

So obviously I like NLog so far. Not enough to use it in spite of having another solution available, though.

C# – log4net log files disappear when service restarted

As empi says, we'll need to see your config file to tell for sure. However, I'll bet you have the Append property set to false. From the log4net docs:

If the value is set to false then the file will be overwritten, if it is set to true then the file will be appended to.

Try adding this to your RollingFileAppender config:

 <appendToFile value="true" />

EDIT: Looking at your posted config file, this line looks odd:

<param name="StaticLogFileName" value="true" />

...which is documented as:

Gets or sets a value indicating whether to always log to the same file. true if always should be logged to the same file, otherwise false.

That sounds like it matches what you're seeing. Try removing that line, or setting it to false.

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