Logging Application Block Properties

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05/09/2013

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The latest Enterprise Library information can be found at the Enterprise Library site.

The tables in this topic explain the Logging Application Block properties. This topic includes the following sections:

Trace Listener Properties
Category Source Properties
Filter Properties
Logging Application Block Properties

Trace Listener Properties

These tables explain the properties for the different trace listeners. There are tables for the following trace listeners:

Custom Trace Listener. This is a class you have created that derives from the CustomTraceListener class.
Database Trace Listener. This trace listener writes formatted log entries to a database.
Email Trace Listener. This trace listener sends log entries as e-mail messages.
Flat File Trace Listener. This trace listener writes log entries to a text file.
Formatted Event Log Trace Listener. This trace listener formats log entries and writes them to Windows Event Log.
MSMQ Trace Listener. This trace listener writes log entries to a message queue.
Rolling Flat File Trace Listener. This trace listener creates a new log file depending on the current log file age and/or size.
System Diagnostics Trace Listener. This is one of the .NET Framework trace listeners such as the Console Trace Listener.
WMI Trace Listener. This trace listener raises a WMI management event for each log entry received.
XML Trace Listener. This trace listener is used to integrate the Logging Application Block with applications that use WCF.

For more information, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table.

Custom Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add a custom trace listener to the configuration.

Property	Description
Attributes	The key/value pairs. To edit these, click the ellipsis button (…) and use the EditableKeyValue Collection Editor. The attributes are a collection of key/value string pairs of configuration information for the custom trace listener.
Formatter	The formatter to use with this trace listener. Click the formatter you want to use in the drop-down list. The default is None. This is optional.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is Custom Trace Listener. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, a Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.
Type	The type of the trace listener. The type must derive from the CustomTraceListener class. Click the ellipsis button (…) to view the Type Selector dialog box, and then click the type you want. This is required.

Database Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add a Database TraceListener.

Property	Description
AddCategoryStoredProcedure	The name of the stored procedure that adds a category. The default is AddCategory. This is required.
DatabaseInstance	The name of the database instance to use. The default is None. This is required.
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Formatter	The formatter to use with this trace listener. Select one from the drop-down list. The default is None. This is optional.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is Database Trace Listener. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	A property used by trace listeners to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, and Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.
WriteLogStoredProcedureName	The name of the stored procedure that writes the log entries. The default is WriteLog. This is required.

Email Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add an Email TraceListener.

Property	Description
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Formatter	The formatter to use with this trace listener. Select one from the drop-down list. The default is None. This is optional.
FromAddress	The address where the log entry originated. The default is from@example.com. This is required.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is Email Trace Listener. This is required.
SmtpPort	The SMTP port that receives e-mail messages. The default is 25. This is optional.
SmtpServer	The SMTP server used to send e-mail messages. The default is 127.0.0.1. This is optional.
SubjectLineEnder	The subject line suffix. This is optional.
SubjectLineStarter	The subject line prefix. This is optional.
ToAddress	The address where the log entry is sent. The default is to@example.com. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, a Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.

Flat File Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add a FlatFile TraceListener.

Property	Description
Filename	The name of the file where entries are written. The default name is trace.log. This is a required value. It can include environment variables such as %WINDIR%, %TEMP%, and %USERPROFILE%.
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Footer	Additional information contained in the file footer. The default is "----------------------------------------." This is optional.
Formatter	The formatter to use with this trace listener. Select one from the drop-down list. The default is None. This is optional.
Header	Additional information contained in the file header. The default is "----------------------------------------." This is optional.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is FlatFile Trace Listener. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, a Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.

Note

If the file you specify for the FlatfileTraceListener is read-only, the trace listener does not write the data to the file and no exception occurs. Make sure that the file attributes are set to read/write.

When you use the FlatFileTraceListener class to write log information to a file, the application block locks the file until the application closes. It is possible to open and read the file, but you cannot move or delete the log file until you close the application.

Formatted Event Log Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add a Formatted EventLog TraceListener.

Property	Description
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Formatter	The formatter to use with this trace listener. Select one from the drop-down list. The default is None. This is optional.
Log	The name of the event log where entries are written. The default is Application. This is optional.
MachineName	The name of the computer on which to write log entries. This is optional.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is Formatted EventLog TraceListener. This is required.
Source	The source name to use when writing to the log. The default is Enterprise Library Logging. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, a Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.

MSMQ Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add an Msmq TraceListener.

Property	Description
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Formatter	The formatter to use with this trace listener. Select one from the drop-down list. This must be the Binary Formatter when you use this listener with the Message Queuing distributor service. This is optional.
MessagePriority	Sets the priority of a log entry. This determines its priority while the log entry is in transit and when it is inserted into its destination queue. Possible values are AboveNormal, High, Highest, Low, Lowest, Normal, VeryHigh, and VeryLow. It applies to the MsmqTraceListener class. The default is Normal. This is optional.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is Msmq Trace Listener.
QueuePath	The path to the queue that the Msmq TraceListener instance uses. This attribute is a message queuing path, and it applies to the MsmqTraceListener class. The default is .\Private$\myQueue. This is required.
Recoverable	Specifies whether the log entry is guaranteed to be delivered if there is a computer failure or network problem. The default is False. This is optional.
TimeToBeReceived	The total time for a log entry to be received by the destination queue. The default is 49710.06:28:15. This is optional.
TimeToReachQueue	The maximum time for the log entry to reach the queue. The default is 49710.06:28:15. This is optional.
TraceOutputOptions	Attaches additional information to platform-provided trace listener output. Possible values are CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, and Timestamp. The default is None. This is optional.
TransactionType	The type of a Message Queuing transaction. Possible values are Automatic, None, and Single. It applies to the MsmqTraceListener class. The default is None. This is optional.
UseAuthentication	Specifies whether the message was (or must be) authenticated before being sent. The default is False. This is optional.
UseDeadLetterQueue	Specifies whether a copy of a message that could not be delivered should be sent to a dead-letter queue. The default is False. This is optional.
UseEncryption	Specifies whether to make the message private. The default is False. This is optional.

Rolling Flat File Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add a Rolling Flat File Trace Listener. This trace listener allows you to control the size and age of a log file.

Property	Description
FileName	This is the name of the rolling flat file. This is a required value. It can include environment variables such as %WINDIR%, %TEMP%, and %USERPROFILE%.
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Footer	Additional information contained in the file footer. The default is "----------------------------------------." This is optional.
Formatter	The formatter to use with this trace listener. Select one from the drop-down list. The default is None. This is optional.
Header	Additional information contained in the file header. The default is "----------------------------------------." This is optional.
Name	This is the name of the trace listener. The default is Rolling Flat File Trace Listener. This is required.
RollFileExistsBehavior	This property determines what occurs to an existing file when it rolls over. If you select Overwrite, the existing file is overwritten. If you select Increment, the application block creates a new file and names it by incrementing the timestamp.
RollInterval	This property determines when the log file rolls over. You can select None (the default), Midnight (in which case the log will roll over at midnight), Minute, Hour, Day, Month, or Year. This is optional.
RollSizeKB	This is the maximum size the file can reach, in kilobytes, before it rolls over. This is optional.
TimeStampPattern	This is the date/time format that is appended to the new file name (see the Remarks section that follows this table). This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, and Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.

Remarks

You can control either or both the size of the file and/or its age. For example, if you specify in configuration a RollSizeKB value of 5 KB and a RollInterval value of Day, the file rolls when its size exceeds 5 KB and it also rolls at the end of the day.
If you select Increment for the RoleFileExistsBehavior, the application block creates a new file when the existing file rolls over. The file name includes the current timestamp. If a file with this name already exists, the application block adds an integer to the end of the timestamp and increments it until it cannot find a file with that name. For example, assume there is a file named mylog2007-01-10.log and the file rolls over while that timestamp is still valid. The application block will then look for a file named mylog2007-01-10.1.log. If no such file exists, it will use that file name for the new file. If that file also exists, it will then attempt to locate the log with the next sequence number mylog2007-01-10.2.log.
If you select Overwrite for the RoleFileExistsBehavior, the application block creates a new file when the current file rolls over. The name of the file includes the current timestamp. If a file with that name already exists, the application block overwrites the file. If, for some reason, it cannot overwrite the file, it will generate a name using the same process that is used with the Increment value.
Relative path names resolve to a location that is relative to the AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory directory.

System.Diagnostics TraceListener

The TraceListener class provides the abstract base class for trace listeners that monitor trace and debug output. The following table lists the properties that appear when you add a System.DiagnosticsTraceListener.

Note

If you specify a System.Diagnostics trace listener that writes to a file and that file is read-only, the trace listener does not write the data to the file and no exception occurs. Make sure the file attributes are set to read/write.

Property	Description
InitData	If supplied, this property is used when the application block constructs a trace listener. It is a string whose meaning depends on the type of trace listener being constructed. For the .NET Framework trace listeners, the string has the following values: TextWriterTraceListener: filename; XmlWriterListener: filename; DelimitedLIstTraceListener: filename; ConsoleTraceListener: not applicable; DefaultTraceListener: not applicable; EventLogTraceListener: event source name. If the InitData field is not specified, the application block uses the default constructor. If the user specifies the InitData field for a trace listener that does not have a constructor overload that accepts a string, an error occurs. This is optional.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is System.Diagnostics Trace Listener. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, a Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.
Type	The type of the trace listener. Select from the drop-down list. This is required.

WMI Trace Listener

The WMI Trace Listeneris atrace listener that raises a WMI management event for each log entry it receives. The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add a WMI TraceListener.

Property	Description
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Name	The name of the trace listener. The default is WMI Trace Listener. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, and Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.

XML Trace Listener

The following table lists the properties that you can set when you add an XML TraceListener.

Property	Description
FileName	This is the name of the file where the trace listener writes the data it extracts from an XmlLogEntry object. This is a required value. It can include environment variables such as %WINDIR%, %TEMP%, and %USERPROFILE%.
Filter	Applies a filter that selects the level of message that it will detect. The valid values are All (the default), Off, Critical, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Activity Tracing. The setting effectively means "the specified level and everything more important." For example, the Warning setting will detect warnings, errors, and critical events.
Name	This is the name of the trace listener. The default is XML Trace Listener. This is required.
TraceOutputOptions	Trace listeners use this property to determine which options, or elements, should be included in the trace output. Possible values are: CallStack, DateTime, LogicalOperationStack, None, ProcessId, ThreadId, a Timestamp. The default is None. For an explanation of these values, see the TraceOutputOptions Values table. This is optional.

TraceOutputOptions Values

The following table lists the possible TraceOutputOptions values.

Value	Description
CallStack	Write the call stack, which is represented by the return value of the Environment.StackTrace property.
DateTime	Write the date and time.
LogicalOperationsStack	Write the logical operation stack, which is represented by the return value of the CorrelationManager.LogicalOperationStack property.
None	Do not write any elements.
ProcessId	Write the process identity, which is represented by the return value of the Process.ID property.
ThreadId	Write the ThreadIdentity, which is represented by the return value of the Thread.ManagedThreadIdProperty for the current thread.
Timestamp	Write the timestamp, which is represented by the return value of the System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.GetTimeStamp method.

Category Source Properties

The following table lists the Category Source properties.

Property	Description
Name	The name of the category. The default is Category Source.
SourceLevels	Possible values are ActivityTracing, All, Critical, Error, Information, Off, Verbose, and Warning. The default is All. See the following table for more information.
AutoFlush	Specifies whether the listener will flush its data to the target after every new entry is written to this source. The default value is True. When set to False, code can flush the entries when required. Note that it is your responsibility to ensure that all entries are flushed to the target, especially if an exception or failure occurs in the application. Otherwise, you will lose any cached logging information not yet written to the target.

SourceLevels Values

The following table lists the possible SourceLevels values for a category.

Value	Description
ActivityTracing	Allows the Stop, Start, Suspend, Transfer, and Resume events through.
All	Allows all events through.
Critical	Allows only Critical events through. A critical event is a fatal error or application crash.
Error	Allows Critical and Error events through. An Error event is a recoverable error.
Information	Allows Critical, Error, Warning, and Information events through. An information event is an informational message.
Off	Does not allow any events through.
Verbose	Allows Critical, Error, Warning, Information, and Verbose events through. A Verbose event is a debugging trace.
Warning	Allows Critical, Error, and Warning events through. A Warning event is a non-critical problem.

Filter Properties

The following tables explain the properties for the different types of filters. There are tables for the following filters:

Category Filter. This allows or denies log entries based on their categories.
LogEnabled Filter. This either enables or disables logging.
Priority Filter. This allows or denies log entries based on their priorities.
Custom Filter. This is a filter that you have added to the Logging Application Block.

The following table lists the properties that appear when you add a Category Filter.

Property	Description
CategoryFilterExpression	Sets up the rule for denying or allowing the specified categories. Use the Category Filter Editor to configure the expression.
Name	The name of the filter. The default is Category Filter.

LogEnabled Filter

The following table lists the properties that appear when you add a LogEnabled Filter.

Property	Description
Enabled	The filter is enabled when this property value is True. The default is False.
Name	The name of the filter. The default is LogEnabled Filter.

Priority Filter

The following table lists the properties that appear when you add a Priority Filter.

Property	Description
MaximumPriority	The maximum value a log entry can have to be logged. If you do not set this property, there is no maximum value.
MinimumPriority	The minimum value a log entry must have to be logged. If you do not set this property, there is no minimum value. The default is -1.
Name	The name of the filter. The default is Priority Filter.

Custom Filter

The following table lists the properties that appear when you add a Custom Filter.

Property	Description
Attributes	The key/value pairs for this filter. Click the ellipsis button (…) and use the EditableKeyValue Collection Editor.
Name	The name of the filter. The default is Custom Filter.
Type	The type of the trace listener. Select one from the drop-down list. This is required.