Suppress repeated, identical log entries and add a summary log entry

["Giovannini, Stephanie " <St...@anheuser-busch.com>]

I'm trying to design a custom filter using log4net. I'm in the conceptual stage
of design and I don't see how I can implement the entire design.

The problem is that I want a part of log4net, a filter, to be able to generate
logging entries.

I want to make a filter that will suppress identical log messages from the same
logger if they occur too soon after each other, and then emit a log entry when
the error condition stops. I'll illustrate with an example.

An external device is polled once a second. The device begins to return errors.
The logger calls the Error method. The first error is logged as usual. The
device then returns the exact same error once a second for 10 minutes. The
filter denies all of those entries because they are identical to a log entry
that was logged within a specific expiration period (configurable aspect of
filter, in this example, let's say 2 minutes).

I think I can do what's above. The kicker is the final part, illustrated below.

One expiration period (2 minutes in this example) after the last identical log
entry was denied by the filter, the filter generates a log entry stating that
the error message X had occurred Y times and the last occurrence was at Z time.
This entry should be logged from the same logger that made all the identical log
entries.

I haven't written any code for this because I want to know that it's feasible.
I'm not sure how to get the class that implements IFilter to generate a log
entry from the same logger that submitted the original entries.

Any ideas?

Thanks for reading this...

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