How to turn off Serilog?

Question

We are using Serilog to log items into a db with a Windows service, and the users wanted to be able to do a manual run, so we made a button (on a web page) to make a call to the

Answer 1

This question is a couple of years old, but I happen to be facing a similar problem right now.

The easiest way to turn Serilog's logging off is by creating a new logger without any sinks. From Serilog's documentation, Configuration Basics:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration().CreateLogger();
Log.Information("No one listens to me!");

Edit (08/05/2017)

The solution above is not correct. After some more research, I've found that this can be done by setting a filter when configuring the logger:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .Filter.ByExcluding(_ => !IsLoggingEnabled)
    .WriteTo.MSSqlServer(...)
    .CreateLogger();

, where IsLoggingEnabled is just a boolean flag.

Answer 2

Log levels can be modified at runtime with LoggingLevelSwitch:

var ls = new LoggingLevelSwitch();

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
   .MinimumLevel.ControlledBy(ls)
   .WriteTo.MSSqlServer(...)
   .CreateLogger();

Logging will initially be at the Information level, you can change this via the switch.

Serilog doesn't define an Off level, but you can approximate it with:

ls.MinimumLevel = ((LogEventLevel) 1 + (int) LogEventLevel.Fatal);

...to turn logging off.