Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake

andreas1234567 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by hesco (Deacon) on Nov 07, 2011 at 19:01 UTC
The OP here is not asking that Perl::Critic evaluate @super_long_array, but rather whether the call to $logger is appropriately wrapped by the conditional. if( $lal && $lol ) { $life++; } if( $insurance->rationing() ) { $people->die(); }	[reply]
Re: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by thargas (Deacon) on Nov 07, 2011 at 19:48 UTC
Please read that link to Log4perl again. The Log4perl author is not suggesting that every logging call should be wrapped, but rather that expensive calls should be. Since only the application developer can be expected to be able to tell which calls would be expensive, IMHO using such a Perl::Critic policy (if it exists) would be both code bloat and slow down the application, exactly the opposite to the effect the OP seems to be trying to achieve.	[reply]
Re^2: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by andreas1234567 (Vicar) on Nov 08, 2011 at 13:53 UTC
The following Benchmarked code snipped shows a 10-15% performance increase by simply wrapping the log calls. Note that it is just a scalar being logged (suppressed, actually), not even an array, an especially not a super-long array. I don't find it to be particularly bloated either: Read more... (2 kB) `$ perl l4p_bench.pl x86_64-linux Rate fib_log_buffer fib_log_buffer_is +_chk fib_log_buffer 15605/s -- +-11% fib_log_buffer_is_chk 17454/s 12% + --` [download] -- No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them. [1]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by jethro (Monsignor) on Nov 08, 2011 at 18:05 UTC
Then add this to your test: `sub fib_no_log { my @fibonacci = (0, 1); my ($n, $sum) = (1, 0); while ($n < 1_000_000) { $n = $fibonacci[$#fibonacci] + $fibonacci[ $#fibonacci - 1 ]; push @fibonacci, $n; $sum += $n if (($n % 2) == 0); } return $sum; } ... 'fib_no_log' => sub { fib_no_log() },` [download] and you will get this result: `Rate fib_log_buffer fib_log_buffer_is_chk f +ib_no_log fib_log_buffer 11712/s -- -13% + -68% fib_log_buffer_is_chk 13525/s 15% -- + -63% fib_no_log 36540/s 212% 170% + --` [download] Why? Because even the call to is_debug takes twice as long as the rest, the "meat" of your loop. Obviously you should have a perl_critic rule to warn from use of log4perl at all. Or avoid artificial benchmarks ;-)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by andreas1234567 (Vicar) on Nov 09, 2011 at 05:40 UTC
Re: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by jethro (Monsignor) on Nov 07, 2011 at 17:49 UTC
How would Perl::Critic find out that @super_long_array is in fact a super long array? Note that the negative impact is only when the error message is really long and takes ages to expand. In the normal case warnings or error messages would be relatively short and the impact nonexistant.	[reply]
Re^2: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by andreas1234567 (Vicar) on Nov 08, 2011 at 13:35 UTC
Perl::Critic is a static code analyzer and can of course, by definition, not know the runtime length of arrays. The intention is to create Perl::Critic policy to help track down all logging calls, and then based on the output, help identify which ones are likely to have a negative impact on performance. -- No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them. [1]	[reply]
Re^3: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by jethro (Monsignor) on Nov 08, 2011 at 18:21 UTC
I first wanted to reply that this would be nonsense because nobody puts big arrays into error logs (and I still stand by that). A perl_critic rule that produces 99% false positives is not a good perl_critic rule. But then it occured to me that debug-logs might have such calls more frequently. So you got a point, but only in so far as logging level 'debug' is concerned. You might flag all calls to debug that don't have such a if-clause and you actually would have a somewhat sensible rule IMO.	[reply]
Re: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by mje (Curate) on Nov 10, 2011 at 16:07 UTC
I wouldn't bother doing the check first, I just change the code to: `$logger->error(sub {"Erroneous array: @super_long_array"});` [download] then I believe it does not get expanded until inside Log::Log4perl when it decides to log or not. So now all you need is a Perl Critic rule for using sub {} in logging ;-)	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by choroba (Cardinal) on Nov 08, 2011 at 13:43 UTC
Cannot you just create a new package inheriting from Log::Log4perl that wraps each call to error into is_error check?	[reply]
Re^2: Perl::Critic policy for common Log::Log4perl mistake by saberworks (Curate) on Nov 08, 2011 at 18:43 UTC
No because the string will be interpolated on the way in, so you won't avoid the hit. The only way to avoid the hit is to ensure the string never gets interpolated in the first place (it's not the log call that's slow, it's the string interpolation of a huge array).	[reply]