6 easy foolproof steps to log4net file logging

Just to get you started, I have created this very basic guide to get something into your log file.

1. Use NuGet to install log4net.
2. Create a logger instance globally in your code:
   private static readonly ILog logger = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(MainWindow));
3. Configure the code to look for XML configuration using XmlConfigurator:
   XmlConfigurator.Configure();
4. Locate you Assembly.cs file and insert the following line to let log4net know that you are using your App.config file for the configuration of log4net.
   [assembly: XmlConfigurator(Watch = true)]
5. Insert this into your App.config file:
   <configSections>
       <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler, log4net" />
     </configSections>
    
     <log4net>
   
       <appender name="RollingFile" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
         <file value="example.log" />
         <appendToFile value="true" />
         <maximumFileSize value="100KB" />
         <maxSizeRollBackups value="2" />
   
         <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
           <conversionPattern value="%level %thread %logger - %message%newline" />
         </layout>
       </appender>
   
       <root>
         <level value="INFO" />
         <appender-ref ref="RollingFile" />
       </root>
     </log4net>
6. Start logging by calling any of the logging methods on your logger instance:
   logger.Info("My first log entry");

Thats it! Pretty damn easy!

Watch out for sections like this in your config:
<startup>
        <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
</startup>

It might cause some problems, so perhaps just delete it!