NLog v6 will automatic load NLog.config as before

Author: snakefoot

_posts/2024-10-01-nlog-6-0-goals.md

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ NLog v6.0 has the following goals:
 - Extract NLog.Targets.NetworkTarget to its own nuget-package
 - Extract NLog.Targets.MailTarget to its own nuget-package
 - Extract NLog.Targets.FileTarget to its own nuget-package NLog.Targets.ConcurrentFileTarget
-  - NLog will instead have a simple FileTarget without ConcurrentWrites-support but only KeepFileOpen = false
+  - NLog will instead have a simple FileTarget without ConcurrentWrites-support, but can still use KeepFileOpen = false
 
 The overall goal for NLog v6.0 is to continue being a fully working logging-library in a single nuget-package.
 The NLog-package will out of the box only handle file- and console-output, which will probably cover 90 pct.

_posts/2025-04-01-nlog-6-0-major-changes.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ NLog 6.0 is a major version release that introduces breaking changes, including
 ### NLog supports AOT
 
 NLog has traditionally relied on reflection to dynamically discover requirements for target output.
-But reflection does not always work well with build trimming, and before NLog marked itself to have trimming disabled.
+But reflection does not always work well with build trimming, and before NLog marked itself to be excluded from trimming.
 
 NLog includes many features, each of these feature often introduce additional dependencies on the .NET library.
 This can lead to overhead for AOT builds, as it must include and compile all the relevant source code.
@@ -20,37 +20,21 @@ NLog v6 attempts to reduce its footprint by extracting several features into sep
 - NLog.RegEx - Depends on System.Text.RegularExpressions which is a huge dependency for a logging library.
 - NLog.Targets.ConcurrentFile - ConcurrentWrites using global mutex from operating system API.
 - NLog.Targets.AtomicFile - ConcurrentWrites using atomic file-append from operating system API.
+- NLog.Targets.GZipFile - EnableArchiveFileCompression using GZipStream for writing GZip compressed log-files.
 - NLog.Targets.Mail - Depends on System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient.
-- NLog.Targets.Network - Depends on TCP and UDP Network Socket.
+- NLog.Targets.Network - Depends on TCP and UDP Network Socket, and adds support for Syslog and Graylog.
 - NLog.Targets.Trace - Depends on System.Diagnostics.TraceListener.
 - NLog.Targets.WebService - Depends on System.Net.Http.HttpClient.
 
-NLog v6 also no longer supports automatic loading of `NLog.config`-file. This is because dynamic configuration 
-loading, prevents build trimming of any NLog types, as the AOT-build cannot determine upfront what types
-will be used by the `NLog.config`-file.
+NLog v6 also no longer depends on `System.Xml.XmlReader`, but now includes its own basic XmlParser for loading `NLog.config` files.
 
-### NLog without automatic loading of NLog.config
+NLog v6 still introduces an overhead when compared with just using `Console.WriteLine`,
+but now reduced to 5 MByte in comparison to 14 MBytes with NLog v5. 
 
-NLog will no longer automatically load the NLog LoggingConfiguration, when creating the first NLog Logger by calling `LogManger.GetCurrentClassLogger()` or `LogManger.GetLogger()`.
-
-Instead one must explicit load the `NLog.config` file at application-startup:
-```csharp
-var logger = NLog.LogManager.Setup().LoadConfigurationFromFile().GetCurrentClassLogger();
-logger.Info("Hello World");
-```
-
-When using Microsoft HostBuilder with `UseNLog()`, then it will continue to automatically load the NLog LoggingConfiguration without having to make any changes.
-
-.NET Framework will continue to probe NLog LoggingConfiguration from the `app.config` / `web.config`, so one can consider doing this:
-```xml
-<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
-<configuration>
-  <configSections>
-    <section name="nlog" type="NLog.Config.ConfigSectionHandler, NLog"/>
-  </configSections>
-  <nlog include="NLog.config" />
-</configuration>
-```
+If the `NLog.config`-file had to be explictly loaded, then the AOT-build could trim much more,
+since right now the AOT-build cannot predict what types will be required by the `NLog.config`-file.
+But disabling automatic loading of the `NLog.config`-file by default, would be a huge breaking change
+and would hurt lots of existing applications.
 
 ### NLog FileTarget without ConcurrentWrites
 
@@ -256,6 +240,9 @@ The .NET `System.Xml.XmlReader` is a heavy dependency that both loads XML using
 code generation to optimize serialization for types. To reduce dependencies and minimize AOT-build-filesize,
 then NLog now includes its own XML-parser.
 
+It could have been nice if Microsoft could refactor `System.Xml.XmlReader`,
+so it only introduced a minimal AOT-footprint, but that is probably too late.
+
 The NLog XML-parser only provides basic XML support, but it should be able to load any XML file that was
 working with NLog v5.