in reply to Re: Re: Wasting time with times
in thread Wasting time with times

You miss the point of my argument entirely - I am most definitely not saying "Do not perform any logging", nor am I saying "Do not timestamp those logs that you do generate". My point was that logging, depending upon the application, does not necessarily have to be carried out in a human readable format, or with human-readable time stamps, particularly when this is done at the cost of application performance. Indeed, I am of the opinion that a great deal of information should be logged and indeed many of my applications log entry and exit points of major subroutines as a matter of standard practice.

An example of this practice would be the Windows Eventlog API - This logging API does not store message information in a readily-parseable, human-readable text format, but rather a binary format which allows for rapid logging and compact storage - These logs can then be accessed programmatically by APIs or through the Eventlog viewer. The end-result is that all information is available to the user or developer working with the Eventlog, despite the fact that the storage format is not natively human-readable.

Logging should be a symbiotic adjunct to an application not a mandatory deadweight.

 

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Re: Re: Re: Re: Wasting time with times
by greenFox (Vicar) on Sep 16, 2002 at 08:54 UTC

    I agree that logging shouldn't be done at the expense of performace but usually that is dictated by how much logging is done and where in the process, not by the logging format. Apache (as an example) seems to be able to cope with high volumes and a readable log file so it can be done.

    Having had to cross corelate faults through logs as diverse as unix system logs, firewall-1 logs, apache logs, mail logs, proxy logs, custom application logs etc. my experience has been that having the date time human readable in some recognisable format is essential. I guess I am too much of a Unix guy to want to have to fire up a GUI just to look at an event log :)

    --
    Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is. -Margaret Mitchell

[reply]
      Actually as an afterthought, I thought I would just add that binary logfiles are not a unique phenomenon to Windows platforms - The *nix wtmp file is also a binary format, one which is variable between platforms, defined by /usr/include/utmp.h.

       

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