NLog 5.0 Finally Ready!

16 May 2022

NLog 5.0 has completed preview testing, and is ready for release.

Major Features

  • NLog is now faster and lighter
  • ScopeContext to replace MDC + MDLC + NDC + NDLC
  • NLog Layout stored as NLog Configuration Variables (Ex. JsonLayout)
  • NLog Layout for everything
  • Fluent API for NLog LoggingConfiguration
  • NLog Callsite from caller member attributes
  • LogFactory with Dependency Injection
  • Updated default values for better out-of-the-box experience
  • Multiple type-aliases can be defined for targets, layouts, layout renderers and conditions
  • Parsing of type-alias will now ignore dashes (-)
  • NLog v5.1 enables support for ISpanFormattable in FormattedMessage and serializing JSON.
  • NLog v5.2 includes annotations for application trimming without build warnings.

See details here

Major Breaking Changes

NLog v5.2 marks additional methods as obsolete as they conflict with application trimming.

See rationale here

  • Strong Version Changed
  • Obsolete methods have been removed
  • LoggingRule Filters DefaultAction changed to FilterResult.Ignore, that can cause NO output.
  • NLog.Extensions.Logging without any filter, that can give LOTS of unexpected output.
  • NLog.Extensions.Logging changes capture of EventId, so missing EventId_Id-property.
  • NLog.Extensions.Logging makes NLog-section reserved in appsettings.json
  • NLog Extensions assemblies will not be loaded automatically, so extensions must be explicitly added.
  • NLog DatabaseTarget extracted into its own NLog.Database nuget-package
  • NLog OutputDebugStringTarget extracted into its own NLog.OutputDebugString nuget-package
  • NLog PerformanceCounterTarget extracted into its own NLog.PerformanceCounter nuget-package
  • NLog ImpersonatingTargetWrapper extracted into its own NLog.WindowsIdentity nuget-package
  • NLog LogReceiverWebServiceTarget extracted into its own NLog.Wcf nuget-package
  • NLog PerformanceCounterLayoutRenderer extracted into its own NLog.PerformanceCounter nuget-package
  • NLog RegistryLayoutRenderer extracted into its own NLog.WindowsRegistry nuget-package
  • NLog WindowsIdentityLayoutRenderer extracted into its own NLog.WindowsIdentity nuget-package
  • Deprecated NLog.Extended nuget-package
  • Deprecated NLog.Config nuget-package
  • Xamarin, Windows Phone and Silverlight platforms replaced by .NET Standard
  • .NET Framework v4.0 platform replaced by .NET Framework v3.5 platform
  • Automatic loading of NLog.config now first check for exe.nlog
  • NLog Configuration will have KeepVariablesOnReload enabled by default
  • Layout and LayoutRenderer are now threadsafe by default
  • Default Layout for NLog Targets has been updated
  • Default Format for NLog Exception layoutrenderer has been updated
  • NLog InternalLogger will not initialize itself from app.config or environment variables
  • Removed obsolete methods and properties
  • ScopeContext changes MappedDiagnosticContext (MDC) to use AsyncLocal
  • MappedDiagnosticContext (MDC), MappedDiagnosticLogicalContext (MDLC), GlobalDiagnosticContext (GDC) now case-insensitive
  • FileTarget KeepFileOpen = true by default
  • FileTarget ConcurrentWrites = false by default
  • FileTarget Encoding default value changed to UTF8
  • FileTarget will include BOM by default for UTF16 and UTF32 encoding
  • NetworkTarget will Discard by default on overflow
  • JsonLayout MaxRecursionLimit default value changed to 1
  • JsonLayout EscapeForwardSlash default value changed to false
  • JsonLayout always includes decimal point for floating-point types
  • CallSite-renderer will automatically clean async callstacks
  • The Simplelayout.ToString() has been changed

For full list of all changes: NLog 5.0 Pull Requests

Credits

Additional thanks to contributers:

  • @TalAloni
  • @njqdev
  • @menishmueli
  • @ErickJeffries
  • @AlanLiu90
  • @aled
  • @tetrodoxin
  • @noamyogev84
  • @simoneserra93
  • @sjafarianm
  • @Orace
  • @GitHubPang
  • @KurnakovMaksim
  • @mickelsonmichael
  • @ThomasArdal