About

Microsoft.Extensions.Logging is combined with a core logging abstraction under Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions. This abstraction is available in our basic built-in implementations like console, event log, and debug (Debug.WriteLine) logging.

Key Features

  • Provide concrete implementations of ILoggerFactory
  • Provide extension methods for service collections, logger builder, and activity tracking
  • Provide logging filtering extension methods for logger builder

How to Use

Prior to .NET 6, we only had two forms possible for doing logging, using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging:

public class LoggingSample1
{
    private ILogger _logger;

    public LoggingSample1(ILogger logger)
    {
        _logger = logger;
    }

    public void LogMethod(string name)
    {
        _logger.LogInformation("Hello {name}", name);
    }
}

Here are some problems with the LoggingSample1 sample using LogInformation, LogWarning, etc.:

  1. We can provide event ID through these APIs, but they are not required today. Which leads to bad usages in real systems that want to react or detect specific event issues being logged.
  2. Parameters passed are processed before LogLevel checks; this leads to unnecessary code paths getting triggered even when logging is disabled for a log level.
  3. It requires parsing of message string on every use to find templates to substitute.

Because of these problems, the more efficient runtime approach recommended as best practices is to use LoggerMessage.Define APIs instead, illustrated below with LoggingSample2:

public class LoggingSample2
{
    private ILogger _logger;

    public LoggingSample2(ILogger logger)
    {
        _logger = logger;
    }

    public void LogMethod(string name)
    {
        Log.LogName(_logger, name);
    }

    private static class Log
    {
        private static readonly Action<ILogger, string, Exception> _logName = LoggerMessage.Define<string>(LogLevel.Information, 0, @"Hello {name}");

        public static void LogName(ILogger logger, string name)
        {
            _logName(logger, name, null!);
        }
    }
}

To reach a balance between performance and usability we added the compile-time logging source generator feature in .NET 6, to learn more about it and learn how to use a source generator to create log messages check out this documentation.


public partial class InstanceLoggingExample
{
    private readonly ILogger _logger;

    public InstanceLoggingExample(ILogger logger)
    {
        _logger = logger;
    }

    [LoggerMessage(
        EventId = 0,
        Level = LogLevel.Critical,
        Message = "Could not open socket to `{hostName}`")]
    public partial void CouldNotOpenSocket(string hostName);
}
Baggage and Tags for ActivityTrackingOptions

.NET 5.0 exposed a new feature that allows configuring the logger builder with the ActivityTrackingOption to add the tracing context Span Id, Trace Id, Parent Id, Trace state, and Trace flags to the logging scope. The tracing context usually carried in Activity.Current.

.NET 6.0 Preview 1 extended this feature to include more tracing context properties which are the Baggage and the Tags:

  var loggerFactory = LoggerFactory.Create(logging =>
  {
      logging.Configure(options =>
      {
          options.ActivityTrackingOptions = ActivityTrackingOptions.Tags | ActivityTrackingOptions.Baggage;
      }).AddSimpleConsole(options =>
      {
          options.IncludeScopes = true;
      });
  });

Main Types

The main types provided by this library are:

  • LoggingServiceCollectionExtensions
  • LoggerFactory
  • LoggerFactoryOptions
  • LoggingBuilderExtensions
  • ActivityTrackingOptions
  • FilterLoggingBuilderExtensions

Additional Documentation

Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Debug Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.EventSource Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.EventLog Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.TraceSource

Feedback & Contributing

Microsoft.Extensions.Logging is released as open source under the MIT license. Bug reports and contributions are welcome at the GitHub repository.

Product Compatible and additional computed target framework versions.
.NET net5.0 was computed.  net5.0-windows was computed.  net6.0 was computed.  net6.0-android was computed.  net6.0-ios was computed.  net6.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net6.0-macos was computed.  net6.0-tvos was computed.  net6.0-windows was computed.  net7.0 was computed.  net7.0-android was computed.  net7.0-ios was computed.  net7.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net7.0-macos was computed.  net7.0-tvos was computed.  net7.0-windows was computed.  net8.0 is compatible.  net8.0-android was computed.  net8.0-browser was computed.  net8.0-ios was computed.  net8.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net8.0-macos was computed.  net8.0-tvos was computed.  net8.0-windows was computed.  net9.0 is compatible.  net9.0-android was computed.  net9.0-browser was computed.  net9.0-ios was computed.  net9.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net9.0-macos was computed.  net9.0-tvos was computed.  net9.0-windows was computed.  net10.0 is compatible.  net10.0-android was computed.  net10.0-browser was computed.  net10.0-ios was computed.  net10.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net10.0-macos was computed.  net10.0-tvos was computed.  net10.0-windows was computed. 
.NET Core netcoreapp2.0 was computed.  netcoreapp2.1 was computed.  netcoreapp2.2 was computed.  netcoreapp3.0 was computed.  netcoreapp3.1 was computed. 
.NET Standard netstandard2.0 is compatible.  netstandard2.1 is compatible. 
.NET Framework net461 was computed.  net462 is compatible.  net463 was computed.  net47 was computed.  net471 was computed.  net472 was computed.  net48 was computed.  net481 was computed. 
MonoAndroid monoandroid was computed. 
MonoMac monomac was computed. 
MonoTouch monotouch was computed. 
Tizen tizen40 was computed.  tizen60 was computed. 
Xamarin.iOS xamarinios was computed. 
Xamarin.Mac xamarinmac was computed. 
Xamarin.TVOS xamarintvos was computed. 
Xamarin.WatchOS xamarinwatchos was computed. 

NuGet packages (7.3K)

Showing the top 5 NuGet packages that depend on Microsoft.Extensions.Logging:

Package Downloads
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore

Entity Framework Core is a modern object-database mapper for .NET. It supports LINQ queries, change tracking, updates, and schema migrations. EF Core works with SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, SQLite, Azure Cosmos DB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and other databases through a provider plugin API. Commonly Used Types: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.DbContext Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.DbSet

Microsoft.Extensions.Http

The HttpClient factory is a pattern for configuring and retrieving named HttpClients in a composable way. The HttpClient factory provides extensibility to plug in DelegatingHandlers that address cross-cutting concerns such as service location, load balancing, and reliability. The default HttpClient factory provides built-in diagnostics and logging and manages the lifetimes of connections in a performant way. Commonly Used Types: System.Net.Http.IHttpClientFactory

Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Configuration

Configuration support for Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.

Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational

Shared Entity Framework Core components for relational database providers.

Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console

Console logger provider implementation for Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.

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Showing the top 20 popular GitHub repositories that depend on Microsoft.Extensions.Logging:

Repository Stars
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ardalis/CleanArchitecture

Clean Architecture Solution Template: A proven Clean Architecture Template for ASP.NET Core 10

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.NET is a cross-platform runtime for cloud, mobile, desktop, and IoT apps.

dotnet/efcore

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abpframework/abp

Open-source web application framework for ASP.NET Core! Offers an opinionated architecture to build enterprise software solutions with best practices on top of the .NET. Provides the fundamental infrastructure, cross-cutting-concern implementations, startup templates, application modules, UI themes, tooling and documentation.

App-vNext/Polly

Polly is a .NET resilience and transient-fault-handling library that allows developers to express policies such as Retry, Circuit Breaker, Timeout, Bulkhead Isolation, and Fallback in a fluent and thread-safe manner. From version 6.0.1, Polly targets .NET Standard 1.1 and 2.0+.

Sonarr/Sonarr

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Radarr/Radarr

Movie organizer/manager for usenet and torrent users.

dotnet/AspNetCore.Docs

Documentation for ASP.NET Core

babalae/better-genshin-impact

📦BetterGI · 更好的原神 - 自动拾取 | 自动剧情 | 全自动钓鱼(AI) | 全自动七圣召唤 | 自动伐木 | 自动刷本 | 自动采集/挖矿/锄地 | 一条龙 | 全连音游 - UI Automation Testing Tools For Genshin Impact

microsoft/garnet

Garnet is a remote cache-store from Microsoft Research that offers strong performance (throughput and latency), scalability, storage, recovery, cluster sharding, key migration, and replication features. Garnet can work with existing Redis clients.

chocolatey/choco

Chocolatey - the package manager for Windows

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