Add support for 'Destructure' configuration options in app settings

[olamartensson]

I would like to be able to configure Serilog's Destructure configuration options like e.g.:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
                .Destructure.With<MyCustomDestructuringPolicy>()
                .Destructure.UsingAttributes() // using Destructurama.Attributed
                .CreateLogger();

in the app settings XML file like e.g.:

<appSettings>
    <add key="serilog:using:DestructuringPolicies" value="MyApp.CustomDestructuringPolicies" />
    <add key="serilog:destructure:WithMyCustomDestructuringPolicy" />
    <add key="serilog:using:Destructurama" value="Destructurama.Attributed" />
    <add key="serilog:destructure:UsingAttributes" />
</appSettings>

It seems to me this is not possible today.

[nblumhardt]

Thanks for the suggestion 👍

[tsimbalar]

In order to have aconsistent implementation, it should be similar to serilog/serilog-settings-configuration#110

[tsimbalar]

How should generic parameters be specified in order to call .Destructure.With<MyCustomDestructuringPolicy>() ?

I would say staying close to C# would be the best approach (using angle brackets), but in a XML-ish config file, that probably means they would have to be escaped like so :

    <add key="serilog:using:DestructuringPolicies" value="MyApp.CustomDestructuringPolicies" />
    <add key="serilog:destructure:With&lt;MyCustomDestructuringPolicy&gt;" />

Another option is to not support generic parameters at all in the settings providers, but to add a non-generic version of the method in Serilog and having both :

public LoggerConfiguration With<TDestructuringPolicy>()

and

public LoggerConfiguration With(Type destructuringPolicyType)

The first one can be used in C# code, the second one can be used in configuration (I believe there is already support for parameters of type Type, but I may be wrong ...).

[tsimbalar]

This is being worked on in the main Serilog repo through :

• Add support from .Destructure.XXX() methods and extension methods in ReadFrom.KeyValuePairSettings serilog#1172
• Add support for .Destructure.AsScalar(Type scalarType) method in KeyValuePairSettings serilog#1177
• Settings: Allow to disambiguate different calls to same method resulting in same key serilog#1178

[nblumhardt]

Looks like this has moved forwards 👍