Serilog destructure policy specific to a sink

Question

I am having difficulty getting a Serilog destructure policy working for only a specific sink.

Scenario

I have two sinks: 1. Console 2. File

When logging a DataTable, I need that object to be serialized in a pretty printed table for the (1) Console sink but not for the (2) File sink.

For example,

var table = new DataTable("MyDataSet");
table.Columns.Add("TextColumn");
table.Columns.Add("NumericColumn", typeof(int));
table.Rows.Add("Item0", 0);
table.Rows.Add("Item1", 1);

logger.Information("Test {@Data}", table);

The expected output should be

[10:23:22 INF] Test 
┌────────────┬───────────────┐
│ TextColumn │ NumericColumn │
├────────────┼───────────────┤
│ Item0      │ 0             │
│ Item1      │ 1             │
└────────────┴───────────────┘

Problem

I have the solution working with a custom IDestructuringPolicy (named ConsoleTablePolicy ) to perform the formatting however it applies for all sinks - not just the Console sink.

Current Configuration

Works, but applied for all sinks - the File sink also gets the pretty printed table. This is not what I need.

var logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .MinimumLevel.Verbose()
    .WriteTo.Console()
    .WriteTo.File(@"C:\TEMP\log.txt")
    .Destructure.With(new ConsoleTablePolicy())
     .CreateLogger();

Expected Configuration

When adding the Console sink and the custom destructure policy to a sublogger, the destructure policy is never called.

var logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .MinimumLevel.Verbose()
    .WriteTo.Logger(c => c.WriteTo.Console().Destructure.With(new ConsoleTablePolicy()))
    .WriteTo.File(@"C:\TEMP\log.txt")
    .CreateLogger();

How to I make this configuration work?

Note that this scenario has been simplified for my needs.

Answer 1

Destructuring applies on the writing thread before it gets submitted to the sinks.

To do what you're doing, you can have an Enricher adjust properties before a given sink.

To avoid successors seeing the mutations the Enricher applies you can either:

• place the enricher before the sink that needs it and have that be the last sink
• place an enricher that removes the property after the sink that used the enrichment in the first instance