{"id":58840,"date":"2021-09-06T07:00:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-06T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/code-maze.com\/?p=58840"},"modified":"2021-12-22T11:55:12","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T10:55:12","slug":"writing-logs-to-sql-server-using-nlog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/code-maze.com\/writing-logs-to-sql-server-using-nlog\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Logs to SQL Server Using NLog"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have previously<\/a> learned how to log messages to a File using NLog. In this article, we are going to learn how to use Nlog to log messages into SQL Server.
\nWe are going to see how we can configure an ASP.NET Core Web API project to support NLog and how we can configure NLog using an XML configuration file.<\/p>\n

To download the source code for this article, you can visit our Writing Logs to SQL Server Using NLog<\/a> repository.<\/div>\n

So, let’s start<\/p>\n

Creating the Database and Table for Logging<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s start by creating the database and a table that will store our log messages. Using SQL Server Management Studio, let\u2019s create our database and name it Nlog<\/code>. To create the table and columns, right-click on the Nlog<\/code> database, select New Query<\/code> and execute the SQL script:<\/p>\n

CREATE TABLE Logs(\r\n    Id int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY(1,1),\r\n    CreatedOn datetime NOT NULL,\r\n    Level nvarchar(10),\r\n    Message nvarchar(max),\r\n    StackTrace nvarchar(max),\r\n    Exception nvarchar(max),\r\n    Logger nvarchar(255),\r\n    Url nvarchar(255)\r\n);\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
We are creating a <\/span>Logs<\/span><\/code> table with 8 columns.<\/span> We are giving each column a name that describes the kind of log message it will store. After executing the script, we are going to have a new table with all the columns in the database:<\/span><\/p>\n
\"Empty<\/a><\/p>\n
Creating the Project<\/h2>\n
Now let\u2019s create a new ASP.NET Web API project.<\/p>\n
Open VS 2019 and select Create a new project<\/code>, choose ASP.NET Web API<\/code> and select Next<\/code>.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s name our project Nlog.API<\/code> and the solution as Nlog<\/code>:<\/p>\n
\"New<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, let\u2019s choose .NET 5.0<\/code> as our target framework and select Create<\/code>:<\/p>\n
\"ASP.NET<\/a>\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Installing Packages and Configuring NLog<\/h2>\n
Using the Nuget Package Manager on Visual Studio, we are going to install these packages:<\/p>\n