Category: C#

In a previous blog post – Custom Layout Renderer for NLog using C#, I have mentioned about how to create a class inheriting LayoutRenderer and writing custom Layout Renderer.

This blog post talks about inheriting from WrapperLayoutRendererBase class.

The WrapperLayoutRendererBase class has a method with the signature:

protected override string Transform(string text)

This method needs to be overridden. The nice thing about using this class is other layout renderers can be used in combination.

Here is a GitHub repo implementing hash functions that can be used as LayoutRenderers.

https://github.com/ALightTechnologyAndServicesLimited/ALight.NLog.LayoutRenderer.Hash

The source code has 4 projects:

1. The actual implementation
2. Unit Tests
3. Benchmark Tests
4. Example

The usage is straightforward, use hash or securehash layout renderer.

  <extensions>
    <add assembly="ALight.NLog.LayoutRenderer.Hash" />
  </extensions>




<target xsi:type="File" name="logfile" fileName="c:\temp\console-example.log"
        layout="${longdate}|${level}|${message} |${all-event-properties} ${exception:format=tostring} ${hash:hello} 
        ${securehash:value=${level}} ${event-properties:item=secret} ${hash:${event-properties:item=secret}} ${hash:${level}}" />

The hash implementation is about 10 – 11 times faster but uses Murmur3 non cryptographic hash.

I might consider a nuget package at a later point, but not now, because the code is very minimal and like a small helper class.

I don’t have any fake aliases, nor any virtual aliases like some of the the psycho spy R&AW traitors of India. NOT associated – “ass”, eass, female “es”, “eka”, “ok”, “okay”, “is”, “erra”, yerra, karan, kamalakar, diwakar, kareem, karan, sowmya, zinnabathuni, bojja srinivas (was a friend and batchmate 1998 – 2002), mukesh golla (was a friend and classmate 1998 – 2002), thota veera, uttam’s, bandhavi’s, bhattaru’s, thota’s, bojja’s, bhattaru’s or Arumilli srinivas or Arumilli uttam (may be they are part of a different Arumilli family – not my family).

–

Mr. Kanti Kalyan Arumilli

B.Tech, M.B.A

Facebook

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Founder & CEO, Lead Full-Stack .Net developer

ALight Technology And Services Limited

ALight Technologies USA Inc

Youtube

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LinkedIn

Phone / SMS / WhatsApp on the following 3 numbers:

+91-789-362-6688, +1-480-347-6849, +44-07718-273-964

+44-33-3303-1284 (Preferred number if calling from U.K, No WhatsApp)

kantikalyan@gmail.com, kantikalyan@outlook.com, admin@alightservices.com, kantikalyan.arumilli@alightservices.com, KArumilli2020@student.hult.edu, KantiKArumilli@outlook.com and 3 more rarely used email addresses – hardly once or twice a year.

*** use WrapperLayoutRendererBase instead of LayoutRenderer, this blog post is about LayoutRenderer ***

NLog has lot of built-in layout renderers. Here is a list of official layout renderers:

https://nlog-project.org/config/?tab=layout-renderers

Creating custom layout renderer is very simple and straight-forward. Here is the official documentation:

https://github.com/NLog/readthedocs/blob/master/docs/How-to-write-a-custom-layout-renderer.md

There are 2 ways:

Lambda:

LayoutRenderer.Register("name", (logEvent, config) => "Message");

In the above scenarion, we can use ${name} when defining a layout, of course instead of returning static string we can do something useful based on the use-case.

Class:

Define a new class inherited from NLog.LayoutRenderers.LayoutRenderer. Use class attribute LayoutRenderer(“name”). LayoutRenderer is an abstract class, implement the class by overriding Append(StringBuilder builder, LogEventInfo logEvent) method i.e Append the value that needs to be added to the log by appending to the StringBuilder parameter.

[LayoutRenderer("Example")]
public class ExampleLayoutRenderer : NLog.LayoutRenderers.LayoutRenderer
{
    public string Value { get; set; }

    protected override void Append(StringBuilder builder, LogEventInfo logEvent)
    {
        builder.Append("Value");
    }
}

Extra parameters can be passed and assigned as properties of the custom class.

[LayoutRenderer("example")]
public class ExampleLayoutRenderer : NLog.LayoutRenderers.LayoutRenderer
{
    public string Value { get; set; }

    protected override void Append(StringBuilder builder, LogEventInfo logEvent)
    {
        // Your custom code
        builder.Append(Value);
    }
}

In the config file the custom layout renderer with params can be used like follows:

{example}

{example:value=abc}

Sometimes, in logs we write some data that might be needed for identifying but not necessarily the real value and for various reasons we might just need a hash. For example: SessionId / Some Cookie Value / IP address etc… Having a custom renderer for hashing such a value could be used.

Very few lines of code, i.e hashing and appending to a stringbuilder would solve the need i.e 2 – 3 lines of code. But, I think the 2 – 3 lines of code could be helpful for other people. I am considering creating an opensource version. I might or might not release nuget package. If I release nuget package, I would definitely make an anouncement. Anyway, not a big open-source project, but just few lines of code.

I don’t have any fake aliases, nor any virtual aliases like some of the the psycho spy R&AW traitors of India. NOT associated – “ass”, eass, female “es”, “eka”, “ok”, “okay”, “is”, “erra”, yerra, karan, kamalakar, diwakar, kareem, karan, sowmya, zinnabathuni, bojja srinivas (was a friend and batchmate 1998 – 2002), mukesh golla (was a friend and classmate 1998 – 2002), thota veera, uttam’s, bandhavi’s, bhattaru’s, thota’s, bojja’s, bhattaru’s or Arumilli srinivas or Arumilli uttam (may be they are part of a different Arumilli family – not my family).

–

Mr. Kanti Kalyan Arumilli

B.Tech, M.B.A

Facebook

LinkedIn

Threads

Instagram

Youtube

Founder & CEO, Lead Full-Stack .Net developer

ALight Technology And Services Limited

ALight Technologies USA Inc

Youtube

Facebook

LinkedIn

Phone / SMS / WhatsApp on the following 3 numbers:

+91-789-362-6688, +1-480-347-6849, +44-07718-273-964

+44-33-3303-1284 (Preferred number if calling from U.K, No WhatsApp)

kantikalyan@gmail.com, kantikalyan@outlook.com, admin@alightservices.com, kantikalyan.arumilli@alightservices.com, KArumilli2020@student.hult.edu, KantiKArumilli@outlook.com and 3 more rarely used email addresses – hardly once or twice a year.