Layouts

Use

Layouts are one of the attributes of most targets. The layout attribute is used to determine the format of the information to be logged. Many pre-defined 'macros' or Layout_renderers exist. In the below example ${machinename} is an example of a layout renderer.

Default Layout

If a target has the layout attribute, you may define a custom layout. If you do not specify a layout, the default layout is used. The default layout is:

${longdate}|${level:uppercase=true}|${logger}|${message}

Pre-Defined Layouts

Several pre-defined layouts exist:

• CsvLayout
  - A specialized layout that renders CSV-formatted events.
• LayoutWithHeaderAndFooter
  - A specialized layout that supports header and footer.
• Log4JXmlEventLayout
  - A specialized layout that renders Log4j-compatible XML events.
• SimpleLayout
  - Represents a string with embedded placeholders that can render contextual information.

Example

An example of a simple layout looks like:

layout="${machinename} ${message}"

This layout is used in the NLog.config file like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

    <targets>
        <target name="console" xsi:type="ColoredConsole" layout="${machinename} ${message}"/>
    </targets>

    <rules>
        <logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="console" />
    </rules>
</nlog>