Serilog.Exceptions is an add-on to Serilog to log exception details and custom properties that are not output in

Exception.ToString()

What Does It Do?

Your JSON logs will now be supplemented with detailed exception information and even custom exception properties. Here is an example of what happens when you log a

DbEntityValidationException

.ToString()

try
{
    ...
}
catch (DbEntityValidationException exception)
{
    logger.Error(exception, "Hello World");
}

The code above logs the following:

{
  "Timestamp": "2015-12-07T12:26:24.0557671+00:00",
  "Level": "Error",
  "MessageTemplate": "Hello World",
  "RenderedMessage": "Hello World",
  "Exception": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationException: Message",
  "Properties": {
    "ExceptionDetail": {
      "EntityValidationErrors": [
        {
          "Entry": null,
          "ValidationErrors": [
            {
              "PropertyName": "PropertyName",
              "ErrorMessage": "PropertyName is Required.",
              "Type": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbValidationError"
            }
          ],
          "IsValid": false,
          "Type": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationResult"
        }
      ],
      "Message": "Validation failed for one or more entities. See 'EntityValidationErrors' property for more details.",
      "Data": {},
      "InnerException": null,
      "TargetSite": null,
      "StackTrace": null,
      "HelpLink": null,
      "Source": null,
      "HResult": -2146232032,
      "Type": "System.Data.Entity.Validation.DbEntityValidationException"
    },
    "Source": "418169ff-e65f-456e-8b0d-42a0973c3577"
  }
}

Getting Started

Add the Serilog.Exceptions NuGet package to your project using the NuGet Package Manager or run the following command in the Package Console Window:

dotnet add package Serilog.Exceptions

When setting up your logger, add the

WithExceptionDetails()

using Serilog;
using Serilog.Exceptions;

ILogger logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .Enrich.WithExceptionDetails()
    .WriteTo.RollingFile(
        new JsonFormatter(renderMessage: true), 
        @"C:\logs\log-{Date}.txt")
    .CreateLogger();

Make sure that the sink's formatter outputs enriched properties.

Serilog.Sinks.Console

{Properties:j}

.WriteTo.Console(outputTemplate: "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u3}] {Message:lj}{NewLine}{Exception} {Properties:j}")

JSON

appSettings.json

configuration

Alternatively to fluent configuration setting can be stored in application configuration using Serilog.Settings.Configuration:

json
{
  "Serilog": {
    "Using": [ "Serilog.Exceptions" ],
    "Enrich": [ "WithExceptionDetails" ],
    "WriteTo": [
      { "Name": "Console" }
    ]
  }
}

Performance

This library has custom code to deal with extra properties on most common exception types and only falls back to using reflection to get the extra information if the exception is not supported by Serilog.Exceptions internally. Reflection overhead is present but minimal, because all the expensive relection-based operations are done only once per exception-type.

Additional Destructurers

Serilog.Exceptions.SqlServer

Add the Serilog.Exceptions.SqlServer NuGet package to your project to avoid the reflection based destructurer for

SqlException

Install-Package Serilog.Exceptions.SqlServer

Add the

SqlExceptionDestructurer

csharp
.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithDestructurers(new[] { new SqlExceptionDestructurer() }))

Serilog.Exceptions.MsSqlServer

Add the Serilog.Exceptions.MsSqlServer NuGet package to your project to avoid the reflection based destructurer for

SqlException

Install-Package Serilog.Exceptions.MsSqlServer

Add the

SqlExceptionDestructurer

csharp
.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithDestructurers(new[] { new SqlExceptionDestructurer() }))

Serilog.Exceptions.EntityFrameworkCore

WARNING: In older versions of Serilog.Exceptions, if you are using EntityFrameworkCore with Serilog.Exceptions you must add this, otherwise in certain cases your entire database will be logged! This is because the exceptions in Entity Framework Core have properties that link to the entire database schema in them (See #100, aspnet/EntityFrameworkCore#15214). Newer versions of Serilog.Exceptions avoids this issue by preventing the destructure of properties that implement IQueryable preventing their execution.

Add the Serilog.Exceptions.EntityFrameworkCore NuGet package to your project when using EntityFrameworkCore in your project

Install-Package Serilog.Exceptions.EntityFrameworkCore

Add the

DbUpdateExceptionDestructurer

csharp
.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithDestructurers(new[] { new DbUpdateExceptionDestructurer() }))

Serilog.Exceptions.Refit

Add the Serilog.Exceptions.Refit NuGet package to your project to provide detailed logging for the

ApiException

Install-Package Serilog.Exceptions.Refit

Add the

ApiExceptionDestructurer

csharp
.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithDestructurers(new[] { new ApiExceptionDestructurer() }))

Depending on your Serilog setup, common

System.Exception

.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithDestructurers(new[] { new ApiExceptionDestructurer(destructureCommonExceptionProperties: false) }))

The default configuration logs the following properties of an

ApiException

• Uri

• StatusCode

In addition, the

ApiException.Content

.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithDestructurers(new[] { new ApiExceptionDestructurer(destructureHttpContent: true) }))

Be careful with this option as the HTTP body could be very large and/or contain sensitive information.

Custom Exception Destructurers

You may want to add support for destructuring your own exceptions without relying on reflection. To do this, create your own destructuring class implementing

ExceptionDestructurer

ArgumentException

.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithDestructurers(new[] { new MyCustomExceptionDestructurer() }))

If you write a destructurer that is not included in this project (even for a third party library), please contribute it.

Additional configuration

You can configure some additional properties of destructuring process, by passing custom destructuring options during setup:

.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder()
    .WithDefaultDestructurers()
    .WithRootName("Exception"))

Currently following options are supported:

• RootName

  : The property name which will hold destructured exception,

  ExceptionDetail

  by default.

• Filter

  : The object implementing

  IExceptionPropertyFilter

  that will have a chance to filter properties just before they are put in destructured exception object. Go to "Filtering properties" section for details.

• DestructuringDepth

  : The maximum depth of reflection based recursive destructuring process.

• ReflectionBasedDestructurer

  : Reflection based destructurer is enabled by default, but can be disabled in case you want to have complete control over destructuring process. You will have to register destructurers for all exceptions explicitly.

Filtering properties

You may want to skip some properties of all or part your exception classes without directly creating or modifying custom destructurers. Serilog.Exceptions supports this functionality using a filter.

Most typical use case is the need to skip

StackTrace

TargetSite

.Enrich.WithExceptionDetails(new DestructuringOptionsBuilder().WithFilter(someFilter));

Filtering for other scenarios is also supported:

• Use

  WithIgnoreStackTraceAndTargetSiteExceptionFilter

  if you need to filter some other set of named properties
• Implement custom

  IExceptionPropertyFilter

  if you need some different filtering logic
• Use

  CompositeExceptionPropertyFilter

  to combine multiple filters

Continuous Integration

| Name | Operating System | Status | History | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Azure Pipelines | Ubuntu | | | Azure Pipelines | Mac | | | Azure Pipelines | Windows | | | Azure Pipelines | Overall | | | | GitHub Actions | Ubuntu, Mac & Windows | | | | AppVeyor | Ubuntu, Mac & Windows | | |

Contributions and Thanks

Please view the contributing guide for more information.

• 304NotModified - Added Markdown syntax highlighting.
• joelweiss - Added Entity Framework Core destructurers.
• krajek & JeroenDragt - For adding filters to help ignore exception properties you don't want logged.
• krajek - For helping with cyclic dependencies when using the reflection destructurer.
• mraming - For logging properties that throw exceptions.
• optical - For a huge VS 2017 upgrade PR.
• Jérémie Bertrand - For making Serilog.Exceptions compatible with Mono.
• krajek - For writing some much needed unit tests.