Log events

Log event is the atomic unit of logging data: every act of logging produces one.

Users are typically not required to create log events manually as numerous logging extensions handle event construction, unless they are building a custom log implementation/decorator.

Structure

Every log event consists of five components:

• Level

  • Levels indicate event severity:

    • Debug: verbose output, typically disabled in production

    • Info: neutral messages

    • Warn: non-critical errors that don't affect the normal operation of the application

    • Error: unexpected errors that may require human attention

    • Fatal: critical errors resulting in application shutdown

• Timestamp

  • Timestamp of the event creation. Includes timezone information.

• Message template

  • Template of the log message that may contain placeholders to be filled with values from properties. May be absent in a valid log event.

• Properties

  • Arbitrary key-value data with case-sensitive string keys. May be absent in a valid log event.

• Exception

  • The error associated with the log event. May be absent in a valid log event.

Immutability

Log events are effectively immutable: any changes lead to creation of a new event. LogEvent class provides a set of special transformation methods:

logEvent = logEvent.WithProperty("Count", 100);
logEvent = logEvent.WithoutProperty("UselessProperty");

This ensures thread safety when routing the same event to multiple logs.