Thanks for the suggestion. I built the following code based on your idea, which seems to do the trick. It makes repeated attempts to load the config file and correct for missing path errors. If it encounters an error it doesn't recognize, or if it can't get a path created, it gives up and loads a blank config file (which it creates then and there to be sure it's blank). So far, it's passed all my tests but if anyone sees something broken here please drop me a note.
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) recover
+y
        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 give
+n path.  This prevents infinite loops here
                $init_fail = 1;
                last INIT;
            }

            my $dir = "/my/base/path";     # if the base path isn't th
+ere, 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 catc
+hing 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);
}

[download]

In reply to Re^2: Graceful handling of Log::Log4perl errors by chaos_cat
in thread Graceful handling of Log::Log4perl errors by chaos_cat

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.