How-to-write-a-custom-target.md

It’s really easy. Create a class that inherits from NLog.Targets.TargetWithLayout and override the Write() method. In the body of the method invoke this.Layout.Render() to get the message text, then send the text to the destination media.

Don't forget to [[register your custom target|register-your-custom-component]]!

Example

This is a skeleton target that writes messages to the specified host. Compile using:

csc.exe /t:library /out:MyAssembly.dll /r:NLog.dll MyFirstTarget.cs

using NLog;
using NLog.Config;
using NLog.Targets;
 
namespace MyNamespace 
{ 
    [Target("MyFirst")] 
    public sealed class MyFirstTarget: TargetWithLayout 
    { 
        public MyFirstTarget()
        {
            this.Host = "localhost";
        }
 
        [RequiredParameter] 
        public string Host { get; set; }
 
        protected override void Write(LogEventInfo logEvent) 
        { 
            string logMessage = this.Layout.Render(logEvent); 
 
            SendTheMessageToRemoteHost(this.Host, logMessage); 
        } 
 
        private void SendTheMessageToRemoteHost(string host, string message) 
        { 
            // TODO - write me 
        } 
    } 
}

How to pass configuration options to the target?

Consider the above example. There’s a property called “Host” that does just that. Having a public property that sets the required configuration parameters is enough for NLog to use it. Each attribute that you put in the <target /> definition gets passed to the appropriate public property. NLog takes care of the appropriate conversions necessary so that you can use integer, string, datetime, boolean parameters. Check also [[Properties-constraints-for-custom-extensions]]