Re: [boost] Logging library review results

From: Sean Hunt (rideau3_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-03-18 20:56:33

John Torjo wrote:
> Yes - my problem is that each person seems to have a different opinion 
> of what "simple case". However, what I'll do is this:
> - have a few simple cases, and write the code for them
> - minimize the number of lines I write in order to meet a certain case
> - question: what do you think it's a reasonable number of lines, for a 
> simple case? I'd go for 5-10 lines of code.
>
> About those simple cases : the problem is that I have my own simple 
> cases - which might not be what you want.
> So, if you have your great simple case, shout!
>
> On a side-note - I'll make a couple of web pages where I'll split the 
> work to be done. Then, you all are most welcome to comment on them.
>   
My example of a simple case might be something like this:

I want to log to a file, with three levels of logging. So I might want 
to do the following (just an example! Not trying to mandate an interface 
or anything):

#include <boost/log.hpp>

using namespace boost;
using namespace boost::log;

log<to_file<some_template_tricks>> my_log(warning);

// some function
{
my_log(error)<<"Error! Something went wrong!";
}

The some_template_tricks is just there because you can't put string 
literals in a template - if we had to make our own streams and template 
them, that would be okay. And the use of warning and error are just 
error-checking conditions - if I construct it with warning as the 
parameter, then only stuff that's a warning level or more serious can be 
logged. I would define a concept to indicate a set of conditions and 
allow those to be passed in as a template parameter. If you look at the 
kind of genericism in multi_index, that is the kind of thing I'd like to 
see more of - lots of stuff that's easily avoided if you don't need it, 
but generic and powerful if you do.

As for the documentation, I think that Doxygen is fine, but things need 
to be sorted better, and the reuse of identifiers in lots of different 
namespaces definitely hurts. Especially when it comes to linkage - you 
have names in the documentation that are mislinked because you have them 
in 4 different namespaces and Doxygen can't figure out which one you are 
trying to refer to. Long names aren't too much of an issue, particularly 
in types. If something can be typedefed away, then it makes stuff look 
good and has the nice scoping to go with it.

I really want to see a logging library in boost, as boost is frequently 
the first place I look for a nice, reliable, portable library. It's 
definitely something I would like to see in the future, because I really 
want to have a nice interface that I don't end up reinventing every time 
I start a new project.

Sean