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Articles and tutorials on .NET Core, ASP.NET MVC, Kendo UI, Windows 10, Windows Mobile, Orchard

  • Adding Serilog to Azure Functions created using .NET 5

    The post is based on .NET 5.0

    Before the release of .NET 5, all functions developed using .NET ran as a class library in Azure and it was running inside the same process as the host. But with .NET 5, a function app built with .NET 5 runs in an isolated worker process which lets you decouple your function code from the runtime. A .NET isolated function is basically a console application targeting .NET 5 and requires the following files

    • host.json file
    • local.settings.json file
    • C# project file which defines the project and dependencies
    • Program.cs file(entry point of the app)

    In this post, I will go through the steps that are needed for creating a .NET 5 Azure function, integrating Serilog for file logging, debugging, and running it locally, and then move on to publishing the function to Azure. You may already know that Azure functions already support some form of logging out of the box, but you may need to implement custom logging mechanisms depending on your need or for satisfying organizational requirements. I am going to use Serilog, which is a third-party logging provider which supports .NET and is also one of the most widely used in the ecosystem


    There are some things you need before you start implementing this one. Azure Subscription is needed for hosting the functions in Azure, .NET 5 SDK, and Azure Functions Core Tools. Azure CLI is needed for developing, debugging, and publishing the app to Azure and VS Code for writing code. 

    Azure Subscription

    .NET 5 SDK

    Azure Function Core Tools version 3.0.3381 or greater

    Visual Studio Code

    Azure CLI

    Step 1 

    The first step is to create a new Functions project, we will be using the func command to create a new one from the command line. Even though you can edit and debug the project in Visual Studio, full support is not yet available as the project templates for creating the project and all. The following command will create a new Azure Function project and specifying the runtime as dotnetisolated enables you to run the app on .NET 5

    func init FunctionLogger --worker-runtime dotnetisolated

    When this command is executed, it will create all the necessary files including the host.json and local.settings.json files. The host.json file contains the configuration options affecting all the functions in your app whereas the other file can be used for storing options such as connection strings, secrets, and other settings used by your app. Since this file can have sensitive data, it is excluded when you check in the code to source control

    Step 2 

    Next, we will move on to create a new function in the project which is triggered by an HTTP request. The below statement creates a function named HttpExample using the HttpTrigger template and enables anonymous authentication

    func new --name HttpExample --template "HTTP trigger" --authlevel "anonymous"

  • Learn how to split log data into different tables using Serilog in ASP.NET Core

    For most of the application developers, file systems are the primary choice for storing the information generated by the logging providers. One of the main drawbacks of using the files is that it's very difficult for the search for information or to do an analysis of the information written to it over time. Third-party logging providers such as Serilog have facilities to persist the data in database tables instead of the file system. Even then, if you use a single table to write all you errors and other debug information, the size of the table will grow considerably over time which can affect the performance of the whole operation itself.

    So, in this post, I will explore the possibility of using multiple tables for storing the logging information using Serilog. If you are new to Serilog, please refer to my previous articles on the same here using the links given below.

    Code snippets in this post are based on .NET Core 5.0 Preview 5

    Step 1: Create a Web Application in .NET Core

    To get started we will create a new empty web application using the default template available in Visual Studio. Goto File -> New Project -> ASP.NET Core Web Application

    Give a name for the application, leave the rest of the fields with default values and click Create

    Multiple Log Files in Serilog

    In the next window, select Web Application as a project template. Before you click on the Create button, make sure that you have selected the desired version of .NET Core in the dropdown shown at the top. Here, for this one, I selected .NET 5.0

    Multiple Log Files in Serilog

    You can also do this from .NET CLI using the following command

    dotnet new web  --name SerilogMultipleTables

    When the command is executed it will scaffold a new application using the MVC structure and then restores the necessary packages needed for the default template.

  • Writing logs to different files using Serilog in ASP.NET Core Web Application

    Application log files play an important role in analyzing the bugs and for troubleshooting issues in an application. It’s worth noting that the log files are also used for writing information about events and other information that occurs when the application is running or serving requests in the case of a web application. Most application developers use a single file to log everything from errors, warnings, debug information, etc. There is no harm in following this approach, but the downside is that it will be harder for you to segregate information from the file easily. We can easily overcome this by maintaining multiple log files depending on the need. In this post, I am going to show how we can achieve this with Serilog

    Serilog is a popular third party diagnostic logging library for .NET applications, I have already written some post about it and it’s usage already. If you are new to Serilog, please refer to those posts using the links given below.


    Step 1 : Create a Web Application in .NET Core

    Create a new ASP.NET Core MVC application using the below command

    dotnet new mvc  --name MultiLogFileSample

    You can also do this from Visual Studio by going into File -> New Project -> ASP .NET Core Web Application


    By default, it will create two json files named, appsettings.json and appsettings.development.json. These are the configuration files for the application and are chosen based on the environment where your application is running. These files will have a default configuration as shown below basically sets the default level for logging.


    By default, it is set as Information, which writes a lot of data to the logs. This setting is very useful while we are developing the application, but we should set it higher severity levels when the application is deployed to higher environments. Since Serilog is not going to reference this section, we can safely remove this from the configuration files

  • Write your logs into database in an ASP.NET Core application using Serilog

    In most scenarios, we normally use a flat-files for writing your logs or exception messages. But what if you write that information into the table in a database instead of a file. To implement this functionality, we can make use of third-party providers such as Serilog to log information in a SQL server database. Even though it's not a recommended approach, one can easily search the logs by executing SQL queries against the table.

    Installing Packages

    Serilog provides the functionality to write logs to different sources such as files, trace logs, database and the providers for these are called Serilog Sinks. To write logs to a table in a SQL Server database, you will need to add the following NuGet packages

    Install-Package Serilog
    Install-Package Serilog.Settings.Configuration
    Install-Package Serilog.Sinks.MSSqlServer

    The first package contains the core runtime, the second package can read the key under the "Serilog" section from a valid IConfiguration source and the last one is responsible for making the connection to the database and writing information into the log table.

    Configuring Serilog 

    Modify the appsettings.json file to add a new section called "Serilog". We will set up the connection string to the database, provide the name of the table and instruct Serilog to create the table if not found in the DB

    "Serilog": {
        "MinimumLevel": "Error",
        "WriteTo": [
            "Name": "MSSqlServer",
            "Args": {
              "connectionString": "Server=(localdb)\\MSSQLLocalDB;Database=Employee;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=true",
              "tableName": "Logs",
              "autoCreateSqlTable": true

  • Rollover log files automatically in an ASP.NET Core Web Application using Serilog

    We all implement logging in whatever applications we develop and over time it will grow bigger by each passing day. If we don't control that over time we will run into problems, especially with the size. Most of the logging providers help to overcome this by using rolling log providers which automatically archives the current log file when it reaches specific criteria or a threshold and creates the new file to resume the logging. In this article we will how we can make of the rolling file provider supported by Serilog to implement this functionality.

    Step 1: Install Packages

    First, install the following packages

    Install-Package Serilog
    Install-Package Serilog.Extensions.Logging
    Install-Package Serilog.Sinks.File

    The first package has all the core functionalities of Serilog whereas the second one is a provider for the logging subsystem used by ASP.NET Core(Microsoft.Extensions.Logging). The third package is responsible for writing the log information to the file, manages the rollover and all the related functionalities

    Step 2: Configure Serilog

    Modify the appsettings.json file to include the path for the log file

     "Logging": {
        "LogPath": "logs//ex.log",
        "LogLevel": {
          "Default": "Information",
          "Microsoft": "Warning",
          "Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "Information"

    Then, configure the sink to read this path from the config file and set it up to write to the file by modifying the CreateHostBuilder method in Program.cs file

    var configSettings = new ConfigurationBuilder()
    Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
        .WriteTo.File(configSettings["Logging:LogPath"], rollOnFileSizeLimit:true,fileSizeLimitBytes:10)

  • Implementing Logging in a .NET Core Web Application using Serilog

    Setting up default logging

    Create a new MVC application from Visual Studio. By default, Logging is enabled in the application via the ILogger interface. It has got some built-in providers for writing the log information to the console, event log as well as for third-party providers such as NLog, Serilog, etc.

    For example, if you want to write logging information to the console window or event log, you will need to configure it in the CreateDefaultHostBuilder method in the Program.cs file as shown below.

     public static IHostBuilder CreateHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
        .ConfigureLogging(logging =>
        .ConfigureWebHostDefaults(webBuilder =>

    In the case of a web app, you will get an ILogger from the DI container and use that object for writing into the configured log providers. Let's see how we can do that in the HomeController

    First, create a private variable for the logger interface.

    private readonly ILogger<HomeController> _logger;

    Then modify the constructor as shown below

    public HomeController(ILogger logger)
        _logger = logger;

  • Generate Help Pages for your ASP.NET Core Web Api using Swagger

    For any Web API developers, documenting your API and its methods is of paramount importance. Because these are intended to be consumed third parties, they will find it hard to incorporate it without any proper documentation. Creating a document is a very tedious and time-consuming job and most of the developers are least worried about it. This is where tools like Swagger which can automatically generate the documentation for you by examining your API code. 

    Adding Swagger

    To set it up, you will need to add the below package to your project. This is can be done using the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio or by executing the following command in the Package Manager Console window

    Install-Package Swashbuckle.AspNetCore

    This package will add the following components

    1. Swashbuckle.AspNetCore.Swagger : Middleware used to expose Swagger Document as a JSON endpoint
    2. Swashbuckle.AspNetCore.SwaggerGen : a generator that builds the Swagger Document by looking into your controllers and action methods
    3. Swashbuckle.AspNetCore.SwaggerUI : interprets the JSON outputted by the endpoint and builds an interactive UI

    Configuring Swagger in your API Project

    Adding and configuring Swagger is done in the Program class, first, you will need to import the following namespace

    using Microsoft.OpenApi.Models;

    Then in the ConfigureServices method, register the Swagger generator and define a document

    services.AddSwaggerGen(c =>
         c.SwaggerDoc("v1", new OpenApiInfo { Title = "Swagger Sample API V1", Version = "v1" });

    In the Configure method, add the two statements given below. The first one will enable the middleware to serve the generated document and the second one this document to show the interactive UI

  • Serializing enums as strings using System.Text.Json library in .NET Core 3.0

    .NET Core 3.0 uses the System.Text.Json API by default for JSON serialization operations. Prior versions of .NET Core relied on JSON.NET, a third party library developed by Newtonsoft and the framework team decided to create a brand new library that can make use of the latest features in the language and the framework.

    The new library has got support for all the new features that got introduced in the latest version of C#. And this was one of the main reasons behind the development of the new library because implementing these changes in JSON.NET meant a significant rewrite.

    While serializing an object into JSON using the new library we can control various options such as casing, indentation, etc, but one notable omission is the support for enums by default. If you try to serialize an enum in .NET Core 3.0 with the default library, it will convert it into an integer value instead of the name of the enum.
    For example, let consider the following model and see if what happens when we serialize it using the System.Text.Json library

    public enum AddressType
    public class Employee
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
        public AddressType CommunicationPreference { get; set; }

    and when you serialize it using the serialize method

    List employees = new List{
        new Employee{
            FirstName = "Amal",
            LastName ="Dev",
            CommunicationPreference = AddressType.HomeAddress
        new Employee{
            FirstName = "Dev",
            LastName ="D",
            CommunicationPreference = AddressType.CommunicationAddress
        new Employee{
            FirstName = "Tris",
            LastName ="Tru",
            CommunicationPreference = AddressType.OfficeAddress

    it will produce an output like the one given below


  • Avoid conversion errors by using Custom Converters in System.Text.Json API(.NET Core 3.0)

    The post is based on .NET Core 3.0
    SDK used : 3.0.100

    One of the most common error encountered while doing JSON serialization and deserialization is the data type conversion errors. Till now, we were using the Json.NET library from Newtonsoft for performing the serialization and deserialization in .NET/ASP.NET/.NET Core, but in the latest iteration of .NET Core which is currently under preview, they have removed the dependency on Json.NET and introduced a new built-in library for doing the same. Along with that, the all new library that is going to be introduced with .NET Core 3.0 provides you to define custom converters that can be implemented to get rid of this kind of errors. If you are not aware of it, I have already written a couple of posts about it which you can refer to using the following links.

     Serializing and Deserializing Json in .NET Core 3.0 using System.Text.Json API

    Step-By-Step Guide to Serialize and Deserialize JSON Using System.Text.Json

    The new API is included with the System namespace and you don't need to add any NuGet package to get started with it. Along with the normally used methods for serializing/deserializing JSON, it also includes methods for supporting asynchronous programming. One of the known limitation in the v1 of the API is the limited support for the data types, given below is the list of currently supported types. For more detail, please refer this link Serializer API Document

    • Array 
    • Boolean
    • Byte
    • Char (as a JSON string of length 1)
    • DateTime 
    • DateTimeOffset 
    • Dictionary<string, TValue> (currently just primitives in Preview 5)
    • Double
    • Enum (as integer for now)
    • Int16
    • Int32
    • Int64
    • IEnumerable 
    • IList 
    • Object (polymorhic mode for serialization only)
    • Nullable < T >
    • SByte
    • Single
    • String
    • UInt16
    • UInt32
    • UInt64

  • Step-By-Step Guide to Serialize and Deserialize JSON Using System.Text.Json

    The post is based on .NET Core 3.0 version.

    Update : In preview 7 few changes were made to the API. For serialization use Serialize method instead of ToString and Deserialize method instead of Parse. Post updated to reflect these changes. SDK version : 3.0.100-preview7-012821

    In the last post, I have already given an overview of the System.Text.Json API that is going to be introduced with the release with .NET Core 3.0. This API will replace the Json.NET library by Newtonsoft which is baked into the framework for doing serialization and deserialization of JSON. You can read more about it using this link.

    Step 1: Refer the namespaces

    Add the following lines in your code. If you are working .NET Core 3 project, then there is no need to add any NuGet packages to your project. For .NET Standard and .NET Framework project, install the System.Text.Json NuGet package. Make sure that Preview is enabled and select install version 4.6.0-preview6.19303.8 or higher

    using System.Text.Json;
    using System.Text.Json.Serialization;

    Step 2: Serializing an object into JSON string

    Serialization is the process of converting an object into a format that can be saved. JSON is one of the most preferred format for encoding object into strings. You will be able to do this conversion by calling the ToString method in the JsonSerializer class available in the System.Text.Json API

    For example, to convert a Dictionary object to a JSON string we can use the following statement