With NodeJS in VSCode all console.log logs have a clickable link which takes you to the source code line where the log was generated:

How can we achieve the same result with csharp?

The goal should be that each log entry is clickable to take one to the source code location.

With NodeJS in VSCode all console.log logs have a clickable link which takes you to the source code line where the log was generated:

How can we achieve the same result with csharp?

The goal should be that each log entry is clickable to take one to the source code location.

• c#
• visual-studio-code

2 Answers 2

I did some googling and didnt find a standard solution for that. Since I do not know how familiar you are with C#, I created the following example to demonstrate the wanted behaviour. First you want to use the ILoggerFactory to implement a custom logging instance. Then we will need a custom Log extension method which outputs the filepath including the filenumber. Visual Studio Code will then catch the link making it clickable.

using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions;

using ILoggerFactory loggerFactory = LoggerFactory.Create(builder =>
        {
            builder.AddConsole(options =>
            {
                options.FormatterName = "lineLogger";
            })
            .AddConsoleFormatter<CustomFormatter, ConsoleFormatterOptions>();
        });

var _logger = loggerFactory.CreateLogger<Program>();
_logger.LogWithLocation("Test Log");

public class CustomFormatter : ConsoleFormatter
{
    public CustomFormatter() : base("lineLogger") { }
    public override void Write<TState>(in LogEntry<TState> logEntry, IExternalScopeProvider scopeProvider, TextWriter textWriter)
    {
        textWriter.WriteLine($"{logEntry.Formatter(logEntry.State, logEntry.Exception)}");
    }
}
public static class LoggerExtensions
{
    public static void LogWithLocation(this ILogger logger, string message, [CallerFilePath] string filePath = "", [CallerLineNumber] int lineNumber = 0)
    {
        logger.LogInformation($"{message} ({filePath}:{lineNumber})");
    }
}

as a side note, I got an error saying that ILoggerFactory contains no definition for AddConsole. I found this answer 'ILoggerFactory' does not contain a definition for 'AddConsole' So simply add the package like this:

dotnet add package Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console

You will also need the Microsoft.Extensions.Logging + Abstractions packages. I also created a fiddle to show you how it works with the classical top level statements here https://dotnetfiddle/q680Vj

edit: I changed the implementation to an extension method of the ILoggerFactory which makes the method reusable across every instance of an ILogger instance. Also included using statements.

To help clarify @Aaron's answer and provide an example which works on https://dotnetfiddle/:

using System.IO;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions;

namespace MyProject;
class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        using ILoggerFactory loggerFactory = LoggerFactory.Create(builder =>
        {
            builder.AddConsole(options =>
            {
                options.FormatterName = "lineLogger";
            }).AddConsoleFormatter<CustomFormatter, ConsoleFormatterOptions>();
        });
        var _logger = loggerFactory.CreateLogger<Program>();
        _logger.LogWithLocation("Test Log");
    }
}

public class CustomFormatter : ConsoleFormatter
{
    public CustomFormatter() : base("lineLogger")
    {
    }

    public override void Write<TState>(in LogEntry<TState> logEntry, IExternalScopeProvider scopeProvider, TextWriter textWriter)
    {
        textWriter.WriteLine($"{logEntry.Formatter(logEntry.State, logEntry.Exception)}");
    }
}

public static class LoggerExtensions
{
    public static void LogWithLocation(this ILogger logger, string message, [CallerFilePath] string filePath = "", [CallerLineNumber] int lineNumber = 0)
    {
        logger.LogInformation($"{message} ({filePath}:{lineNumber})");
    }
}

Obviously on dotnetfiddle there are no filenames so the output is something like:

Test Log (:20)

But typically you would have the filename:

Test Log (C:\temp\Program.cs:20)