Building log4net

Log4net provides support for a wide array of targets, including

• older .net 2 and 3.5 (including client profile for net-40)
• more modern net40/net45
• netstandard1.3/2.0

As such, it does require a relatively full .net environment on Windows to build. I have recently found a fairly freshly-installed win11 machine to work adequately, after adding the “windows feature” for “.NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0)”

TL;DR (Windows):

• install Visual Studio Build Tools (at least VS2019)
• install nodejs (at least v16)
• install dotnet (v7+) and the .NET SDK (current latest)
• install dotnet 2, 3, 3.5 via “add windows features”
• in the project folder:
  • npm i
  • npm run build

TL;DR (!Windows):

• install the dotnet SDK - v7 or better (at time of writing, v8 is current but I‘ve had some issues elsewhere, so I’m waiting a bit before recommending it everywhere
• install Mono (you're going to need it to target certain versions of .NET)
• install nodejs 16+
  • in the project folder:
  • npm i
  • export DOTNET_CORE=1 npm run build
    • we force using dotnet on non-windows targets for now. At some point, this should become automatic

The full story

Options:

• build locally. Suggested environment:
  • Pre-requisites:
    • Visual Studio 2019 Build Tools
      • include desktop targets at least
      • include dotnet core targets or download and install the latest dotnet sdk (you will need at least v2.1)
      • note that build is possible with VS2022 build tools, but I had to install VS2019 build tools as well to get msbuild to recognise the legacy net35-profile target
    • Ensure you have .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installed
      • on Win10+, this can only be installed via Add/Remove Windows Components
      • on other platforms, see https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/net35-sp1
      • Building against .net 2/3.5, especially Client Profile, is not supported on Mono
    • Log4Net supports some older, out-of-support .net SDKs, particularly dotnet core 1.1 and .net framework client profiles for 3.5 and 4.0. There are helper powershell scripts in the root of this repository to assist with obtaining and installing these SDKs from Microsoft servers. Please see:
      • install-dotnet-core-sdk-1.1.ps1
      • install-net-framework-sdk-3.5.ps1
  • Binaries can be built with a Visual Studio or Rider installation
  • Binaries, packages and a release zip can be built via commandline
    • Ensure that you have a reasonably modern NodeJS installed (at least version 8+)
      • npm ci
      • npm run build
      • optionally npm test to run all tests
      • optionally npm run release to generate release artifacts
• build locally (CLI edition)
  • install nodejs (at least v16)
  • npm i
  • npm run build
• build via docker for windows, using the build-with-docker-for-windows.bat script
• build via the vs2019 Windows AppVeyer image. There is an appveyer.yml file included which (should) build if you set up AppVeyer to track your fork. AppVeyer is free for open-source projects. (TODO: should have a link to the official AppVeyer build)

Updating the site

Log4Net uses Maven to build the site. Source artifacts can be found under src/site. Building the site can be accomplished with npm run build-site. You should have maven installed:

• Windows: get it from Scoop
• OSX: get it from Homebrew
• Linux: use your package manager

The site will be generated in target/site, and can be viewed locally. Updates should be pushed to the asf-staging branch of https://github.com/apache/logging-log4net-site

Once the site has been pushed to the asf-staging branch, it can be viewed at http://logging.staged.apache.org/log4net