logging : Java Glossary

logging

Dumping out information as a program proceeds to a file. It may be a log of transactions, debugging information or raw material for statistics. This sounds like something mindless that could be entirely handled with println, but by adding sufficient bells and whistles it becomes an entire package unto itself. For example, you control at runtime which logging information you want included using the LogManager class and a configuration file. You have multiple log files, that cycle rather than one big one.

There are logging classes built into Java 1.4+. Here is how you use them:

Log4J allows channels to stream different classes of messages to different files, and to configure logging behaviour after the code is compiled on a very fine granularity.

Instead of peppering your code with debugging println statements that you remove entirely when you find the bug, with logging you leave the logging/generic debug instrumentation code in place, and turn it on and off, in different parts of the program, to varying degrees of detail, at run time, without having to recompile. You normally leave at least a minimum amount of the logging engaged even in production to help track down trouble and to produce statistics.

Normally small project would not use a formal logging package, but almost any team project will be fitted with a logger.

Learning More

Oracle’s Technote Guide on Logging : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 on your local Windows J: drive.

Oracle’s Javadoc on Logger class : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 or in the old JDK 1.6.0_32 on your local Windows J: drive.

Oracle’s Javadoc on FileHandler class : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 or in the old JDK 1.6.0_32 on your local Windows J: drive.

Oracle’s Javadoc on Level class : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 or in the old JDK 1.6.0_32 on your local Windows J: drive.

Oracle’s Javadoc on SimpleFormatter class : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 or in the old JDK 1.6.0_32 on your local Windows J: drive.

Oracle’s Javadoc on LogManager class : available:

on the web at Oracle.com
in the current JDK 1.7.0_04 or in the old JDK 1.6.0_32 on your local Windows J: drive.

Books

recommend book⇒The Complete Manual log4j

by:

Ceki Gülcü

978-2-97003690-6

paperback

publisher:

QOS.ch

published:

2003-05-07

The author is the creator of Log4J.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

Appache Logging
clear Vista event log
Log4c
log4C++
Log4CPlus
Log4j
Log4Perl
Log4PLSQL
Lumbermill
Protomatter Syslog
SuperLogging

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