Logging a literal message in NLog and/or Serilog

Question

UPDATE: This turned out to be a discrepancy that exists in Serilog (which I tunnel to), but does not exist in NLog, which treats a single argument as a verbatim string (as one (and specifically, I) might expect)

Using NLog, if I want to log something potentially containing embedded double braces: {{ without having them collapsed, what's the most efficient way?

e.g.:

NLog.LogManager.GetLogger("x").Warn("{{\"aaa}}")

emits in my custom serilog-target:

{"aaa}

And I want:

{{"aaa}}

Is

NLog.LogManager.GetLogger("x").Warn("{0}","{{\"aaa}}")

the best way or is there a more efficient way ?

UPDATE: no such tricks required:

NLog.LogManager.GetLogger("x").Warn("{{\"aaa}}")

... does indeed just work!

(This is not (just) me being pedantic, its a follow-on from a question regarding a high perf/throughput requirement)

Not sure I understand. NLog doesn't do any parsing of the string if not providing any parameters. So your first example doesn't make sense, unless you have a broken target. — Rolf Kristensen, Apr 05 '18 at 19:04
@RolfKristensen Yes, 100% correct (see my declaration below). It does mean the answer in the linked question by Julian turns out to be wrong though:- the forwarder needs to materialize using NLog's formatting — Ruben Bartelink, Apr 05 '18 at 19:14
I guess your work-around will do then, though I would probably do it in the custom target. If no parameters then inject the string as parameter to Serilog using the message template `{0}` (Serilog caches message templates so it should be inexpensive) — Rolf Kristensen, Apr 05 '18 at 19:33
Guess you should rephrase your question to "Logging a literal message in Serilog" :) — Rolf Kristensen, Apr 05 '18 at 19:35
@RolfKristensen LOL. I met you half way on the title ;) (And had already done the transition in the obvious place:- the `SerilogTarget`). Thanks for the thinking, checking and validation. — Ruben Bartelink, Apr 05 '18 at 21:46

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 05 '18 at 19:13

Turns out the question is wrong. The code above works in NLog - a single string is not treated as a message template and is rendered verbatim.

I was tunneling it thru to Serilog per the linked question, and Serilog was doing the collapsing I show the effects of in the question.

Logging a literal message in NLog and/or Serilog

1 Answers1