Multi-threaded friendly logging for Console Mode C#?

Question

I have a Console Mode .NET Framework C# application for which I need to log some messages. Among the normal synchronous messages, I have calls to Task.Factory.StartNew to capture stdout and stderr from calling process.start and I would like to write the child process's stdout/stderr to a single log file shared with the parent.

What I have tried:

I have a crude home grown logging function that uses System.IO.File.AppendText and if it throws an exception (perhaps because the file is already open in another thread) I create a new unique log file name and write to that....

This is working but it is ugly.

I suppose I could try writing to a Microsoft Access database table -- would this accommodate multiple thread writing to the same table simultaneously? I'm hoping there is an easier solution!

What I would like:

Are there any logging packages that could help me? I have lots of log files resulting from multiple threads colliding while they try to write to the same log file and create a new unique log file name to write to. I would like a single log file that I could view with notepad.

Thanks

Siegfried

Answer 1

Hello,

Look to SeriLog async, code sample.

Answer 2

How fast do you need it to be? If you do not mind a bit of contention between your threads, you can add a lock around the logging code and then you won't have any trouble appending the text to a single file:

private object lockObject = new object();

public Log(string text)
{
    lock(lockObject)
    {
        using (StreamWriter sw = File.AppendText(path))
        {
            sw.WriteLine(text);
        }
    }
}