Serilog Exceptions

Serilog.Exceptions is an add-on to Serilog to log exception details and custom properties that are not output in Exception.ToString().

What Does It Do?

Your JSON logs will now be supplemented with detailed exception information and even custom exception properties. Here is an example of what happens when you log a DbEntityValidationException from EntityFramework (This exception is notorious for having deeply nested custom properties which are not included in the.ToString()).

try

{...

}

catch (DbEntityValidationException exception)

{

logger.Error(exception, "Hello World");

}

The code above logs the following:

{

"Timestamp": "2015-12-07T12:26:24.0557671+00:00",

"Level": "Error",

"MessageTemplate": "Hello World",

"RenderedMessage": "Hello World",

"Exception": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationException: Message",

"Properties": {

"ExceptionDetail": {

"EntityValidationErrors": [

{

"Entry": null,

"ValidationErrors": [

{

"PropertyName": "PropertyName",

"ErrorMessage": "PropertyName is Required.",

"Type": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbValidationError"

}

],

"IsValid": false,

"Type": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationResult"

}

],

"Message": "Validation failed for one or more entities. See 'EntityValidationErrors' property for more details.",

"Data": {},

"InnerException": null,

"TargetSite": null,

"StackTrace": null,

"HelpLink": null,

"Source": null,

"HResult": -2146232032,

"Type": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationException"

},

"Source": "418169ff-e65f-456e-8b0d-42a0973c3577"

}

}

Getting Started

Add the Serilog.Exceptions NuGet package to your project using the NuGet Package Manager or run the following command in the Package Console Window:

dotnet add package Serilog.Exceptions

When setting up your logger, add the WithExceptionDetails() line like so:

using Serilog;

using Serilog.Exceptions;

ILogger logger = new LoggerConfiguration().Enrich.WithExceptionDetails().WriteTo.RollingFile(

new JsonFormatter(renderMessage: true),

@"C:\logs\log-{Date}.txt").CreateLogger();

Make sure that the sink's formatter outputs enriched properties. Serilog.Sinks.Console and many more do not do that by default. You may need to add {Properties:j} to your sink's format template. For example, configuration for console sink may look like that:.WriteTo.Console(outputTemplate: "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u3}] {Message:lj}{NewLine}{Exception} {Properties:j}")

JSON appSettings.json configuration

Alternatively to fluent configuration setting can be stored in application configuration using _Serilog.Settings.Configuration_:

{

"Serilog": {

"Using": [ "Serilog.Exceptions" ],

"Enrich": [ "WithExceptionDetails" ],

"WriteTo": [

{ "Name": "Console" }

]

}

}

Performance

This library has custom code to deal with extra properties on most common exception types and only falls back to using reflection to get the extra information if the exception is not supported by Serilog.Exceptions internally. Reflection overhead is present but minimal, because all the expensive relection-based operations are done only once per exception-type.

Additional Destructurers

Serilog.Exceptions.SqlServer

Add the Serilog.Exceptions.SqlServer NuGet package to your project to avoid the reflection based destructurer for SqlException when using System.Data.SqlClient:

Install-Package Serilog.Exceptions.SqlServer

Add the SqlExceptionDestructurer during setup:.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder().WithDefaultDestructurers().WithDestructurers(new { new SqlExceptionDestructurer() }))

Serilog.Exceptions.MsSqlServer

Add the Serilog.Exceptions.MsSqlServer NuGet package to your project to avoid the reflection based destructurer for SqlException when using Microsoft.Data.SqlClient:

Install-Package Serilog.Exceptions.MsSqlServer

Add the SqlExceptionDestructurer during setup:.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder().WithD