If configured with PatternLayout, Log::Log4perl will use Perl's caller($depth) function internally to obtain the name of the function/method where the logging statement is located in at runtime.

Since caller($depth) returns "(eval)" as the subroutine name if you're within an eval {}, Log::Log4perl will display "(eval)".

There's a nasty trick you could use to bump up the caller level and have it return the calling function:

use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);

Log::Log4perl->easy_init(
    { level  => $DEBUG,
      layout => "%M: %m%n",
    });

foo();

sub foo {
    eval {
        local $Log::Log4perl::caller_depth =
            $Log::Log4perl::caller_depth + 1;
        DEBUG("I'm here!");
    };
}
[download]

This will print

    main::foo: I'm here!
[download]

as expected. However, there's several things to consider:

• Don't forget to set back the caller level to the previous value when you're exiting the eval {} construct (the 'local' takes care of that).
• This will only go back one level. If you've got nested eval's, it's not going to go up to the calling function.
• Not only the reported function name will be affected this way, but also items like the line number (%L) or file name (%F) will reflect the location of the calling function, not the Log::Log4perl logger call.
• It's not really clean for the application to fiddle around with Log::Log4perl's internals. The next version of Log::Log4perl is rumoured (mutter, mutter, ...) to take care of this issue automagically.

Check the log4perl-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list for updates.