Custom property columns not populating with ForContext unless converted to string

[psiservices-ketan-javia]

Given this config

"columnOptionsSection": {
    "additionalColumns": [
      {
        "AllowNull": true,
        "ColumnName": "ColA",
        "DataType": "varchar",
        "DataLength": 100
      },
      {
        "AllowNull": true,
        "ColumnName": "ColB",
        "DataType": "nvarchar",
        "DataLength": 50
      }
    ]
  }

Code doing logging below only populates the columns if I call ToString() on both properties.

  var pid = Guid.NewGuid();
  var cid = 12345;
  _logger.ForContext("ColA", pid.ToString()) // column values are null if I remove ToString()
              .ForContext("ColB", cid.ToString())
      .Information("Hello", pid, cid);

I would assume it would convert to string. Not a huge deal either way but took a while to figure this odd behavoir out. Not sure if I am missing any settings.

Packages

    <PackageReference Include="Serilog" Version="4.0.2" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Enrichers.Context" Version="4.6.5" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Extensions.Hosting" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Extensions.Logging" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Settings.Configuration" Version="8.0.2" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Sinks.Console" Version="6.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Formatting.Compact" Version="3.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Sinks.MSSqlServer" Version="7.0.1"/>
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Sinks.File" Version="6.0.0" />

.netCore 8 OS: MacOS / Windows

[psiservices-ketan-javia]

Even normal logging statements (no ForContext, just message template with those 2 columns) behave the same way.

[ckadluba]

Hi @psiservices-ketan-javia!

Have you tried to activate SelfLog as described in our documentation under Troubleshooting?

Without doing any debugging, I guess the reason is that you are passing the values to the Information() method with the wrong types.

[psiservices-ketan-javia]

Yes I have the debugging enabled. Changing the column types to match my variable types works. So it appears that Serilog doesn't implticlty try to convert to match the target data type.

[ckadluba]

No, it does not. You have to pass the property values with the correct types.