Log4Ps

PowerShell logging module leveraging log4net and support XML configuration. This has been inspired by log4posh.

to clone correctly

git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:gaelcolas/log4ps.git There's a dependency with my lib.common git submodules.

Compatibility

Version	Status
WMF 4
WMF 5

Dependencies

This module has no external dependencies, everything should be found under this github project.

lib.common

The github project use a submodule (gaelcolas\lib.common) for some helper functions. To clone properly use: git clone --recurse-submodules git@github.com:gaelcolas/log4ps.git

Here's the explanation from StackOverflow:

git - the base command to perform any git command
    submodule - Inspects, updates and manages submodules.
        update - Update the registered submodules to match what the superproject
        expects by cloning missing submodules and updating the working tree of the
        submodules. The "updating" can be done in several ways depending on command
        line options and the value of submodule.<name>.update configuration variable.
            --init without the explicit init step if you do not intend to customize
            any submodule locations.
            --recursive is specified, this command will recurse into the registered
            submodules, and update any nested submodules within.

Should you clone this project, please note that log4ps\lib\lib.common is subproject, and you may need to do the following from times to times:

cd log4ps\lib\lib.common
git submodule update --recursive

lognet

The log4net library binaries (version 1.2.13) are unpacked in the lib folder for now to avoid the need for futher download, and to work in most environment out-of-the box. In future, I might simply load from the GAL, and if not found, use PowerShell Package Manager to download from Chocolatey repository. I am not keen on doing so, but I'd like to remove the trouble of managing the log4net library, the hard coding of the version, and its updates. Feeback welcome on how you'd like to see this bit managed.

What does it do and How?

This PowerShell module allows you to effortlessly leverage the Log4net library from your PowerShell modules or script to add consitent and detailed logging.

The module intercepts the Write-Verbose, Write-Error, Write-Warning, Write-Debug and Write-Host commandlet by use of proxy functions to first send it to the custom Write-log4pslog command before sending to their original commands from the Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility module.

The Write-Log4psLog will send the given message to the log4net logger, which needs to be configured prior using. The default behaviour is to simply output the messages sent to those command back into the console. The easiest way to configure log4net, is to have an xml configuration file at the same location of your script, named the same as the PowerShell file with .config at the end (for file1.ps1, add the xml file1.ps1.config). This xml file must be valid xml and have a log4net section as per detailed on the log4net configuration. See below for a practical example.

Example

demo6.ps1

#This file is to demo different type of appender
#remember, by default the module is looking for a config file, here .\demo6.ps1.config
Import-Module -Force $PSScriptRoot\..\..\log4ps

Write-Host 'This test is killing puppies'
Write-Verbose 'This is a verbose msg'
Write-Debug -Message 'Debug message'
Write-warning 'This is a WARN msg!'
Write-Error 'This is an error'

Get-Content $env:TMP\example.log

#find other example of file appender here: https://logging.apache.org/log4net/release/config-examples.html

demo6.ps1.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <configSections>
        <section name="log4net" type="System.Configuration.IgnoreSectionHandler" />
    </configSections>
    <log4net>
        <appender name="RollingFile" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
            <file value="${TMP}\example.log" />
            <appendToFile value="true" />
            <maximumFileSize value="1KB" />
            <maxSizeRollBackups value="2" />
            <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
                <conversionPattern value="%date{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff[zzz]} %logger [Line: %property{ScriptLineNumber}] %-5level - %message (%property{PSCallStack})%newline" />
            </layout>
        </appender>
        <root>
         <level value="DEBUG" />
         <appender-ref ref="RollingFile" />
        </root>
    </log4net>
</configuration>

Result:

Configuration

Appenders

Layout

Features