Enable file logging for log4net from code instead of from configuration

Question

Why in the world does the following test fail? (its in xunit) I've tried it with different appenders and it never writes anything though the log seems like it is ready to write. I eventually created my own appender just to test it.

    public class TestAppender : AppenderSkeleton {
        public event Action<LoggingEvent> AppendCalled = delegate { };
        protected override void Append(LoggingEvent loggingEvent) {
            AppendCalled(loggingEvent);
        }
    }
    public class Class1 {
        private TestAppender _appender = new TestAppender();
        public Class1() {
            log4net.Util.LogLog.InternalDebugging = true;
            Hierarchy hierarchy = (Hierarchy)LogManager.GetRepository();
            Logger rootLogger = hierarchy.Root;
            rootLogger.Level = Level.All;
            Logger coreLogger = hierarchy.GetLogger("abc") as Logger;
            coreLogger.Level = Level.All;

            coreLogger.Parent = rootLogger;
            PatternLayout patternLayout = new PatternLayout();
            patternLayout.ConversionPattern = "%logger - %message %newline";
            patternLayout.ActivateOptions();
            _appender.Layout = patternLayout;
            _appender.ActivateOptions();
            coreLogger.AddAppender(_appender);            
        }
        [Fact]
        public void Test() {
            bool called = false;
            _appender.AppendCalled += e => called = true;
            var log = LogManager.GetLogger("abc");
            log.Debug("This is a debugging message");
            Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2));
            log.Info("This is an info message");
            Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2));
            log.Warn("This is a warning message");
            Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2));
            log.Error("This is an error message");
            Assert.True(called);
        }
}

Answer 1

I always use the code below to configure log4net from code. Works great!

Hierarchy hierarchy = (Hierarchy)LogManager.GetRepository();
hierarchy.Root.RemoveAllAppenders(); /*Remove any other appenders*/

FileAppender fileAppender = new FileAppender();
fileAppender.AppendToFile = true;
fileAppender.LockingModel = new FileAppender.MinimalLock();
fileAppender.File = Server.MapPath("/") + "log.txt";
PatternLayout pl = new PatternLayout();
pl.ConversionPattern = "%d [%2%t] %-5p [%-10c]   %m%n%n";
pl.ActivateOptions();
fileAppender.Layout = pl;
fileAppender.ActivateOptions();

log4net.Config.BasicConfigurator.Configure(fileAppender);

//Test logger
ILog log =LogManager.GetLogger(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
log.Debug("Testing!");

Answer 2

Just throwing a guess out there...

Do you have the XmlConfiguration defined in your assembly?

Did you forget it in your test project?

[assembly: log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator(Watch = true)]

That usually burns me every once in a while.

Answer 3

Still can't say why the above code doesn't work but I got log4net to configure properly and use my appender by replacing all the configuration code with:

log4net.Config.BasicConfigurator.Configure(_appender);

From here.