How to log correct context with Threadpool threads using log4net?

Posted by myotherme on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by myotherme
Published on 2010-05-21T13:10:51Z Indexed on 2010/05/21 22:30 UTC
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I am trying to find a way to log useful context from a bunch of threads. The problem is that a lot of code is dealt with on Events that are arriving via threadpool threads (as far as I can tell) so their names are not in relation to any context. The problem can be demonstrated with the following code:

class Program
{
    private static readonly log4net.ILog log = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        new Thread(TestThis).Start("ThreadA");
        new Thread(TestThis).Start("ThreadB");
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
    private static void TestThis(object name)
    {
        var nameStr = (string)name;
        Thread.CurrentThread.Name = nameStr;
        log4net.ThreadContext.Properties["ThreadContext"] = nameStr;
        log4net.LogicalThreadContext.Properties["LogicalThreadContext"] = nameStr;
        log.Debug("From Thread itself");
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(x => log.Debug("From threadpool Thread: " + nameStr));
    }
}

The Conversion pattern is:

%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property] - %message%newline

The output is like so:

2010-05-21 15:08:02,357 [ThreadA] DEBUG LogicalContextTest.Program [{LogicalThreadContext=ThreadA, log4net:HostName=xxx, ThreadContext=ThreadA}] - From Thread itself
2010-05-21 15:08:02,357 [ThreadB] DEBUG LogicalContextTest.Program [{LogicalThreadContext=ThreadB, log4net:HostName=xxx, ThreadContext=ThreadB}] - From Thread itself
2010-05-21 15:08:02,404 [7] DEBUG LogicalContextTest.Program [{log4net:HostName=xxx}] - From threadpool Thread: ThreadA
2010-05-21 15:08:02,420 [16] DEBUG LogicalContextTest.Program [{log4net:HostName=xxx}] - From threadpool Thread: ThreadB

As you can see the last two rows have no Names of useful information to distinguish the 2 threads, other than manually adding the name to the message (which I want to avoid). How can I get the Name/Context into the log for the threadpool threads without adding it to the message at every call?

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