[LOG4NET-30] Add support for type aliases in config file

• Type: New Feature
• Status: Open
• Priority: Trivial
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Fix Version/s: 1.2/2.0 Maintenance Release
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: liu ron
• Created: 19/May/05 02:51
• Updated: 04/Apr/20 22:29

Description

IBatisNet uses "type" attributes in their xml config files:

type="Company.Project.Foo.Data.Entity.Product, Company.Project.Data"
type="Company.Project.Foo.Data.Entity.Category, Company.Project.Data"
type="Company.Project.Foo.Data.Entity.User, Company.Project.Data"

to save the user from having to re-type long strings every time something references a Product, Category, etc. They define an <alias> node that contains <typeAlias> entries:

<alias>
<typeAlias alias="Product" type="Company.Project.Foo.Data.Entity.Product, Company.Project.Data" />
<typeAlias alias="Category" type="Company.Project.Foo.Data.Entity.Product, Company.Project.Data" />
<typeAlias alias="User" type="Company.Project.Foo.Data.Entity.Product, Company.Project.Data" />
</alias>

Wherever I have to specify a type, I may use one of the aliases I defined at the top of the file.

It would be nice if log4net supported a similiar concept. It would also be nice if log4net shipped with some default aliases. I think normal casing would be ok:

FileAppender -> log4net.Appender.FileAppender

An example incorporating the above suggestions would be (this will probably wrap when it posts to the mailing list):

<alias>
<typeAlias alias="SessionContextPatternConverter" type="log4netAspExtensions.SessionContextPatternConverter, log4netAspExtensions" />
<typeAlias alias="CacheContextPatternConverter" type="log4netAspExtensions.CacheContextPatternConverter, log4netAspExtensions" />
<typeAlias alias="RequestContextPatternConverter" type="log4netAspExtensions.RequestContextPatternConverter, log4netAspExtensions" />
<typeAlias alias="ApplicationContextPatternConverter" type="log4netAspExtensions.ApplicationContextPatternConverter, log4netAspExtensions" />
</alias>

<appender name="LoginFileAppender" type="FileAppender">
<file value="c:/inetpub/wwwroot/Logs/Logins.txt" />
<layout type="PatternLayout">
<converter>
<name value="asp-session" />
<type value="SessionContextPatternConverter" />
</converter>
<conversionPattern value="%5p %d (%c:%L) - [%asp-session

{UserId}] %m%n" />
</layout>
</appender>

I haven't fully looked into the <convertor> node to see if it can support this style of attributes but an even shorted syntax might be:

<appender name="LoginFileAppender" type="FileAppender">
<file value="c:/inetpub/wwwroot/Logs/Logins.txt" />
<layout type="PatternLayout">
<converter name="asp-session" type="SessionContextPatternConverter" />
<conversionPattern value="%5p %d (%c:%L) - [%asp-session{UserId}

] %m%n" />
</layout>
</appender>

It should be possible to overwrite the builtin aliases. Had I overridden FileAppender:

<typeAlias alias="FileAppender" type="log4netAspExtensions.AspNetFileAppender, log4netAspExtensions" />

I would be able to declare my appender with support for the ~ character:

<appender name="LoginFileAppender" type="FileAppender">
<file value="~/Logs/Login.txt" />
<layout type="PatternLayout">
<converter name="asp-session" type="SessionContextPatternConverter" />
<conversionPattern value="%5p %d (%c:%L) - [%asp-session

{UserId}

] %m%n" />
</layout>
</appender>

I think that the above changes would descrease the size of the config file and increase the files readability.