NLog with Windsor Castle - how to save log to database (.NET Core 3.1) - castle-windsor

Question

I am dealing with the following problem - I was able to use NLog with Windsor Castle after many tries, but it only works if I log a message string to a file. Now I want to save the custom log information to the database but I really don't know how to do it.
My nlog.config:
<targets>
<target name="file" xsi:type="File" fileName="C:\temp\example.log" layout="${longdate}|${level:uppercase=true}|${message}|${exception}" />
<target name="database" xsi:type="Database"
connectionString = "connectionString"
commandText="INSERT INTO [dbo].[EventLog]
(
[CreateDate],
[UserProfileId],
[IsError],
[Type],
[Username],
[Message],
[Description],
[StackTrace],
[AddressIP]
) VALUES (
#CreateDate,
#UserProfileId,
#IsError,
#Type,
#Username,
#Message,
#Description,
#StackTrace,
#AddressIP
)">
<parameter name="#CreateDate" layout="${event-properties:item=CreateDate}" />
<parameter name="#UserProfileId" layout="${event-properties:item=UserProfileId}" />
<parameter name="#IsError" layout="${event-properties:item=IsError}" />
<parameter name="#Type" layout="${event-properties:item=Type}" />
<parameter name="#Username" layout="${event-properties:item=Username}" />
<parameter name="#Message" layout="${event-properties:item=Message}" />
<parameter name="#Description" layout="${event-properties:item=Description}" />
<parameter name="#StackTrace" layout="${event-properties:item=StackTrace}" />
<parameter name="#AddressIP" layout="${event-properties:item=AddressIP}" />
</target>
</targets>
<rules>
<logger name="logger" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="database" />
<logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="file" />
</rules>
With this config (with commented database part) I'm able to write logs to "example.log".
_logger.Info("test-info");
I tried something like this:
_logger.InfoFormat("\"CreateDate\": {0}, \"Message\": {1}, \"IsError\": {2}, \"Type\": {3}, \"Id\": {4}",
new object[] {
DateTime.Now,
"abcd",
true,
1,
Guid.NewGuid()
});
But exception says that it is impossible to parse Id to unique identifier. I tried to use CASE-END in nlog.config, and I figured out that Id is not passed as parameter (probably rest of data too).
First exception:
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Conversion failed when converting from a character string to uniqueidentifier.
After adding CASE WHEN #Id = '' THEN NULL ELSE convert(uniqueidentifier, #Id) END,
System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'Id', table 'ERS.opt.Dev.dbo.EventLog'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.
How to format log to pass data in schema shown above and save it to database?

Answer 1

You can use message templates to perform structured logging:
_logger.InfoFormat("\"CreateDate\": {CreateDate}, \"Message\": {Message}, \"IsError\": {IsError}, \"Type\": {Type}, \"Id\": {Id}",
new object[] {
DateTime.Now,
"abcd",
true,
1,
Guid.NewGuid()
});
See also: https://github.com/NLog/NLog/wiki/How-to-use-structured-logging
Notice that by default then database-target <parameter> uses DbType="String". If database-column is defined with other datatype, then make sure to explicit specify DbType so it matches the column.