• Lightweight
• Simple API
• No dependencies
• Asynchronous by default
• Logging exceptions won't crash your app

PM> Install-Package CoreTechs.Logging

The log manager should be a long lived object in your application. It's responsible for coordinating LogEntry's and Target's.

The preferred way to create and initialize the LogManager is to use the Configure method:

var logManager = LogManager.Configure("logging");

And in the app.config:

<configSections>
	<section name="logging" type="CoreTechs.Logging.Configuration.ConfigSection, CoreTechs.Logging" />
</configSections>
<logging>
	<!-- logging targets are defined here -->
	<target type="Console" />
</logging>

Notice the name of the configuration section is passed into the Configure method.

You could also configure the LogManager in the application code, if you're into that:

var console = new ConsoleTarget();
var logManager = new LogManager(new[] {console});

When you want to log something, you'll need a Logger instance. Typically, you'll create one as a field in each class that writes to the log:

// create a logger with the same name as the current class
private readonly Logger Log = _logManager.GetLoggerForCallingType();

The logger's name ends up being the Source property of each written log entry. You can name the logger anything you like:

var logger = new Logger(logManager, "My happy logger");

Use the Logger instance (referenced by Log below) to write to the log targets:

Log.Trace("A small detail");
Log.Debug("Something {0} is going on.", "fishy");
Log.Data("Username", "roverby")
	.Data("Email", "roverby@core-techs.net")
	.Info("A user has logged into the system.");

if (TooManyIncorrectLoginAttempts)
	Log.Data("Username", username)
		.Warn("A user may be trying to break into the system.");

try
{
	SomethingDangerous();
}
catch (TolerableException ex)
{
	Log.Exception(ex).Error();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
	Log.Exception(ex).Fatal();
	throw;
}

	throw new NotImplementedException(); // :)