my %paths = ();
my $init_fail = 0;
INIT: while (1) { 
	eval {Log::Log4perl->init_once($LOGGER_CONF_FILE)};
	if ($@) {
		# Config file error of some kind
		# Send some alert message here

		# if we get a missing directory error, try some (sane) recovery
		if ($@ =~ m{Can't\sopen\s/my/base/path/(.+)\s\(No such file or directory\)}) {
			my $path = $1;
			if ( $paths{$path}++ ) {  # only try once to create a given path.  This prevents infinite loops here
				$init_fail = 1;
				last INIT;
			}

			my $dir = "/my/base/path";     # if the base path isn't there, creating it is above this module's pay grade
			my @dir_list = split '/', $path;
			my $file = pop @dir_list;
			foreach my $sub_dir (@dir_list) {
				$dir .= "/$sub_dir";
				if (! -d$dir) {
					eval {mkdir ($dir)}; # not too concerned with catching errors here, the next round will bail on duplicate path attempt
				}
			}
		}
		# for other config file errors, throw our hands up in disgust and move on
		else {
			$init_fail = 1;
			last INIT;
		}
	}
	else {
		$init_fail = 0;
		last INIT;
	}
}

# if we couldn't get the config file to initlize, load a blank one and move on without logging
if ($init_fail) {
	warn "Couldn't initilize logger, defaulting to blank config file";
	my $default_config_file = "/my/base/path/etc/default.logger.conf";
	open (my $fh, ">", $default_config_file);
	close ($fh);
	Log::Log4perl::init_once($default_config_file);
}