Writing logs into Excel file using Serilog for .NET

Question

I have implemented logging in my WPF application using Serilog . I want the output to be generated to be in Excel format. I want the excel file to have these column headers as mentioned below so that I can sort by applying filters .

date time| logtype |environment| app build version | test case description | status

A sample output should look like below

date time       | logtype    |environment| app build version| test case description | status
02-04-2020 4:30 | Test Reults|aBC06      |2.0.150           | Loading Views         | Success

I have the following logging configuration

 public class LoggerFactory : ILoggerFactory
    {
        public Serilog.Core.Logger Create()
        {
            var logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
                .ReadFrom.AppSettings()
                .CreateLogger();
            return logger;
        }
    }

The AppSettings has this configuration

<add key="serilog:using:Seq" value="Serilog.Sinks.Seq" />
    <add key="serilog:using:RollingFile" value="Serilog.Sinks.RollingFile" />
    <add key="serilog:write-to:RollingFile.pathFormat" value="C:\Dev\Logs\abc-ui-automation-{Date}.txt" />
    <add key="serilog:write-to:RollingFile.retainedFileCountLimit" value="10" />
    <add key="serilog:write-to:Seq.serverUrl" value="http://localhost:5341" />

Currently, the logger is writing in a txt file without the format mentioned above. How do I ensure that I achieve the task mentioned above?

Answer 1

Simplest solution would be to log data as CSV and open it with excel afterwards. Therefore you could simply implement your own version of an ITextFormatter . Check the default implementations like RawFormatter to see how.

You only need to write your own implementation like

public void Format(LogEvent logEvent, TextWriter output)
{
    output.write(logEvent.Timestamp.ToString("dd-MM-yyyy H:mm");
    output.write(";");
    output.write(logEvent.Level);
    output.write(";");
    output.write(logEvent.Properties["KEY"]);
    output.write(";");
    //...
    output.WriteLine();
}

To write the header, you could make use of the Serilog.Sinks.File.Header package. Basically it could be done like

Func<string> headerFactory = () => "date time;logtype;...";

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.File(new YourCsvFormatter(), "log.csv", hooks: new HeaderWriter(headerFactory))
    .CreateLogger();