
Logging Cookbook
****************

Author:
   Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip at red-dove dot com>

This page contains a number of recipes related to logging, which have
been found useful in the past.


Using logging in multiple modules
=================================

Multiple calls to ``logging.getLogger('someLogger')`` return a
reference to the same logger object.  This is true not only within the
same module, but also across modules as long as it is in the same
Python interpreter process.  It is true for references to the same
object; additionally, application code can define and configure a
parent logger in one module and create (but not configure) a child
logger in a separate module, and all logger calls to the child will
pass up to the parent.  Here is a main module:

   import logging
   import auxiliary_module

   # create logger with 'spam_application'
   logger = logging.getLogger('spam_application')
   logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
   # create file handler which logs even debug messages
   fh = logging.FileHandler('spam.log')
   fh.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
   # create console handler with a higher log level
   ch = logging.StreamHandler()
   ch.setLevel(logging.ERROR)
   # create formatter and add it to the handlers
   formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s')
   fh.setFormatter(formatter)
   ch.setFormatter(formatter)
   # add the handlers to the logger
   logger.addHandler(fh)
   logger.addHandler(ch)

   logger.info('creating an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary')
   a = auxiliary_module.Auxiliary()
   logger.info('created an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary')
   logger.info('calling auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something')
   a.do_something()
   logger.info('finished auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something')
   logger.info('calling auxiliary_module.some_function()')
   auxiliary_module.some_function()
   logger.info('done with auxiliary_module.some_function()')

Here is the auxiliary module:

   import logging

   # create logger
   module_logger = logging.getLogger('spam_application.auxiliary')

   class Auxiliary:
       def __init__(self):
           self.logger = logging.getLogger('spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary')
           self.logger.info('creating an instance of Auxiliary')
       def do_something(self):
           self.logger.info('doing something')
           a = 1 + 1
           self.logger.info('done doing something')

   def some_function():
       module_logger.info('received a call to "some_function"')

The output looks like this:

   2005-03-23 23:47:11,663 - spam_application - INFO -
      creating an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,665 - spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary - INFO -
      creating an instance of Auxiliary
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,665 - spam_application - INFO -
      created an instance of auxiliary_module.Auxiliary
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,668 - spam_application - INFO -
      calling auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,668 - spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary - INFO -
      doing something
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,669 - spam_application.auxiliary.Auxiliary - INFO -
      done doing something
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,670 - spam_application - INFO -
      finished auxiliary_module.Auxiliary.do_something
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,671 - spam_application - INFO -
      calling auxiliary_module.some_function()
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,672 - spam_application.auxiliary - INFO -
      received a call to 'some_function'
   2005-03-23 23:47:11,673 - spam_application - INFO -
      done with auxiliary_module.some_function()


Multiple handlers and formatters
================================

Loggers are plain Python objects.  The ``addHandler()`` method has no
minimum or maximum quota for the number of handlers you may add.
Sometimes it will be beneficial for an application to log all messages
of all severities to a text file while simultaneously logging errors
or above to the console.  To set this up, simply configure the
appropriate handlers.  The logging calls in the application code will
remain unchanged.  Here is a slight modification to the previous
simple module-based configuration example:

   import logging

   logger = logging.getLogger('simple_example')
   logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
   # create file handler which logs even debug messages
   fh = logging.FileHandler('spam.log')
   fh.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
   # create console handler with a higher log level
   ch = logging.StreamHandler()
   ch.setLevel(logging.ERROR)
   # create formatter and add it to the handlers
   formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s')
   ch.setFormatter(formatter)
   fh.setFormatter(formatter)
   # add the handlers to logger
   logger.addHandler(ch)
   logger.addHandler(fh)

   # 'application' code
   logger.debug('debug message')
   logger.info('info message')
   logger.warn('warn message')
   logger.error('error message')
   logger.critical('critical message')

Notice that the 'application' code does not care about multiple
handlers.  All that changed was the addition and configuration of a
new handler named *fh*.

The ability to create new handlers with higher- or lower-severity
filters can be very helpful when writing and testing an application.
Instead of using many ``print`` statements for debugging, use
``logger.debug``: Unlike the print statements, which you will have to
delete or comment out later, the logger.debug statements can remain
intact in the source code and remain dormant until you need them
again.  At that time, the only change that needs to happen is to
modify the severity level of the logger and/or handler to debug.


Logging to multiple destinations
================================

Let's say you want to log to console and file with different message
formats and in differing circumstances. Say you want to log messages
with levels of DEBUG and higher to file, and those messages at level
INFO and higher to the console. Let's also assume that the file should
contain timestamps, but the console messages should not. Here's how
you can achieve this:

   import logging

   # set up logging to file - see previous section for more details
   logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG,
                       format='%(asctime)s %(name)-12s %(levelname)-8s %(message)s',
                       datefmt='%m-%d %H:%M',
                       filename='/temp/myapp.log',
                       filemode='w')
   # define a Handler which writes INFO messages or higher to the sys.stderr
   console = logging.StreamHandler()
   console.setLevel(logging.INFO)
   # set a format which is simpler for console use
   formatter = logging.Formatter('%(name)-12s: %(levelname)-8s %(message)s')
   # tell the handler to use this format
   console.setFormatter(formatter)
   # add the handler to the root logger
   logging.getLogger('').addHandler(console)

   # Now, we can log to the root logger, or any other logger. First the root...
   logging.info('Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.')

   # Now, define a couple of other loggers which might represent areas in your
   # application:

   logger1 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area1')
   logger2 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area2')

   logger1.debug('Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.')
   logger1.info('How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.')
   logger2.warning('Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.')
   logger2.error('The five boxing wizards jump quickly.')

When you run this, on the console you will see

   root        : INFO     Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.
   myapp.area1 : INFO     How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.
   myapp.area2 : WARNING  Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.
   myapp.area2 : ERROR    The five boxing wizards jump quickly.

and in the file you will see something like

   10-22 22:19 root         INFO     Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.
   10-22 22:19 myapp.area1  DEBUG    Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.
   10-22 22:19 myapp.area1  INFO     How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.
   10-22 22:19 myapp.area2  WARNING  Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.
   10-22 22:19 myapp.area2  ERROR    The five boxing wizards jump quickly.

As you can see, the DEBUG message only shows up in the file. The other
messages are sent to both destinations.

This example uses console and file handlers, but you can use any
number and combination of handlers you choose.


Configuration server example
============================

Here is an example of a module using the logging configuration server:

   import logging
   import logging.config
   import time
   import os

   # read initial config file
   logging.config.fileConfig('logging.conf')

   # create and start listener on port 9999
   t = logging.config.listen(9999)
   t.start()

   logger = logging.getLogger('simpleExample')

   try:
       # loop through logging calls to see the difference
       # new configurations make, until Ctrl+C is pressed
       while True:
           logger.debug('debug message')
           logger.info('info message')
           logger.warn('warn message')
           logger.error('error message')
           logger.critical('critical message')
           time.sleep(5)
   except KeyboardInterrupt:
       # cleanup
       logging.config.stopListening()
       t.join()

And here is a script that takes a filename and sends that file to the
server, properly preceded with the binary-encoded length, as the new
logging configuration:

   #!/usr/bin/env python
   import socket, sys, struct

   with open(sys.argv[1], 'rb') as f:
       data_to_send = f.read()

   HOST = 'localhost'
   PORT = 9999
   s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
   print('connecting...')
   s.connect((HOST, PORT))
   print('sending config...')
   s.send(struct.pack('>L', len(data_to_send)))
   s.send(data_to_send)
   s.close()
   print('complete')


Sending and receiving logging events across a network
=====================================================

Let's say you want to send logging events across a network, and handle
them at the receiving end. A simple way of doing this is attaching a
``SocketHandler`` instance to the root logger at the sending end:

   import logging, logging.handlers

   rootLogger = logging.getLogger('')
   rootLogger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
   socketHandler = logging.handlers.SocketHandler('localhost',
                       logging.handlers.DEFAULT_TCP_LOGGING_PORT)
   # don't bother with a formatter, since a socket handler sends the event as
   # an unformatted pickle
   rootLogger.addHandler(socketHandler)

   # Now, we can log to the root logger, or any other logger. First the root...
   logging.info('Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.')

   # Now, define a couple of other loggers which might represent areas in your
   # application:

   logger1 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area1')
   logger2 = logging.getLogger('myapp.area2')

   logger1.debug('Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.')
   logger1.info('How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.')
   logger2.warning('Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.')
   logger2.error('The five boxing wizards jump quickly.')

At the receiving end, you can set up a receiver using the
``SocketServer`` module. Here is a basic working example:

   import pickle
   import logging
   import logging.handlers
   import SocketServer
   import struct


   class LogRecordStreamHandler(SocketServer.StreamRequestHandler):
       """Handler for a streaming logging request.

       This basically logs the record using whatever logging policy is
       configured locally.
       """

       def handle(self):
           """
           Handle multiple requests - each expected to be a 4-byte length,
           followed by the LogRecord in pickle format. Logs the record
           according to whatever policy is configured locally.
           """
           while True:
               chunk = self.connection.recv(4)
               if len(chunk) < 4:
                   break
               slen = struct.unpack('>L', chunk)[0]
               chunk = self.connection.recv(slen)
               while len(chunk) < slen:
                   chunk = chunk + self.connection.recv(slen - len(chunk))
               obj = self.unPickle(chunk)
               record = logging.makeLogRecord(obj)
               self.handleLogRecord(record)

       def unPickle(self, data):
           return pickle.loads(data)

       def handleLogRecord(self, record):
           # if a name is specified, we use the named logger rather than the one
           # implied by the record.
           if self.server.logname is not None:
               name = self.server.logname
           else:
               name = record.name
           logger = logging.getLogger(name)
           # N.B. EVERY record gets logged. This is because Logger.handle
           # is normally called AFTER logger-level filtering. If you want
           # to do filtering, do it at the client end to save wasting
           # cycles and network bandwidth!
           logger.handle(record)

   class LogRecordSocketReceiver(SocketServer.ThreadingTCPServer):
       """
       Simple TCP socket-based logging receiver suitable for testing.
       """

       allow_reuse_address = 1

       def __init__(self, host='localhost',
                    port=logging.handlers.DEFAULT_TCP_LOGGING_PORT,
                    handler=LogRecordStreamHandler):
           SocketServer.ThreadingTCPServer.__init__(self, (host, port), handler)
           self.abort = 0
           self.timeout = 1
           self.logname = None

       def serve_until_stopped(self):
           import select
           abort = 0
           while not abort:
               rd, wr, ex = select.select([self.socket.fileno()],
                                          [], [],
                                          self.timeout)
               if rd:
                   self.handle_request()
               abort = self.abort

   def main():
       logging.basicConfig(
           format='%(relativeCreated)5d %(name)-15s %(levelname)-8s %(message)s')
       tcpserver = LogRecordSocketReceiver()
       print('About to start TCP server...')
       tcpserver.serve_until_stopped()

   if __name__ == '__main__':
       main()

First run the server, and then the client. On the client side, nothing
is printed on the console; on the server side, you should see
something like:

   About to start TCP server...
      59 root            INFO     Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz.
      59 myapp.area1     DEBUG    Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.
      69 myapp.area1     INFO     How quickly daft jumping zebras vex.
      69 myapp.area2     WARNING  Jail zesty vixen who grabbed pay from quack.
      69 myapp.area2     ERROR    The five boxing wizards jump quickly.

Note that there are some security issues with pickle in some
scenarios. If these affect you, you can use an alternative
serialization scheme by overriding the ``makePickle()`` method and
implementing your alternative there, as well as adapting the above
script to use your alternative serialization.


Adding contextual information to your logging output
====================================================

Sometimes you want logging output to contain contextual information in
addition to the parameters passed to the logging call. For example, in
a networked application, it may be desirable to log client-specific
information in the log (e.g. remote client's username, or IP address).
Although you could use the *extra* parameter to achieve this, it's not
always convenient to pass the information in this way. While it might
be tempting to create ``Logger`` instances on a per-connection basis,
this is not a good idea because these instances are not garbage
collected. While this is not a problem in practice, when the number of
``Logger`` instances is dependent on the level of granularity you want
to use in logging an application, it could be hard to manage if the
number of ``Logger`` instances becomes effectively unbounded.


Using LoggerAdapters to impart contextual information
-----------------------------------------------------

An easy way in which you can pass contextual information to be output
along with logging event information is to use the ``LoggerAdapter``
class. This class is designed to look like a ``Logger``, so that you
can call ``debug()``, ``info()``, ``warning()``, ``error()``,
``exception()``, ``critical()`` and ``log()``. These methods have the
same signatures as their counterparts in ``Logger``, so you can use
the two types of instances interchangeably.

When you create an instance of ``LoggerAdapter``, you pass it a
``Logger`` instance and a dict-like object which contains your
contextual information. When you call one of the logging methods on an
instance of ``LoggerAdapter``, it delegates the call to the underlying
instance of ``Logger`` passed to its constructor, and arranges to pass
the contextual information in the delegated call. Here's a snippet
from the code of ``LoggerAdapter``:

   def debug(self, msg, *args, **kwargs):
       """
       Delegate a debug call to the underlying logger, after adding
       contextual information from this adapter instance.
       """
       msg, kwargs = self.process(msg, kwargs)
       self.logger.debug(msg, *args, **kwargs)

The ``process()`` method of ``LoggerAdapter`` is where the contextual
information is added to the logging output. It's passed the message
and keyword arguments of the logging call, and it passes back
(potentially) modified versions of these to use in the call to the
underlying logger. The default implementation of this method leaves
the message alone, but inserts an 'extra' key in the keyword argument
whose value is the dict-like object passed to the constructor. Of
course, if you had passed an 'extra' keyword argument in the call to
the adapter, it will be silently overwritten.

The advantage of using 'extra' is that the values in the dict-like
object are merged into the ``LogRecord`` instance's __dict__, allowing
you to use customized strings with your ``Formatter`` instances which
know about the keys of the dict-like object. If you need a different
method, e.g. if you want to prepend or append the contextual
information to the message string, you just need to subclass
``LoggerAdapter`` and override ``process()`` to do what you need.
Here's an example script which uses this class, which also illustrates
what dict-like behaviour is needed from an arbitrary 'dict-like'
object for use in the constructor:

   import logging

   class ConnInfo:
       """
       An example class which shows how an arbitrary class can be used as
       the 'extra' context information repository passed to a LoggerAdapter.
       """

       def __getitem__(self, name):
           """
           To allow this instance to look like a dict.
           """
           from random import choice
           if name == 'ip':
               result = choice(['127.0.0.1', '192.168.0.1'])
           elif name == 'user':
               result = choice(['jim', 'fred', 'sheila'])
           else:
               result = self.__dict__.get(name, '?')
           return result

       def __iter__(self):
           """
           To allow iteration over keys, which will be merged into
           the LogRecord dict before formatting and output.
           """
           keys = ['ip', 'user']
           keys.extend(self.__dict__.keys())
           return keys.__iter__()

   if __name__ == '__main__':
       from random import choice
       levels = (logging.DEBUG, logging.INFO, logging.WARNING, logging.ERROR, logging.CRITICAL)
       a1 = logging.LoggerAdapter(logging.getLogger('a.b.c'),
                                  { 'ip' : '123.231.231.123', 'user' : 'sheila' })
       logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG,
                           format='%(asctime)-15s %(name)-5s %(levelname)-8s IP: %(ip)-15s User: %(user)-8s %(message)s')
       a1.debug('A debug message')
       a1.info('An info message with %s', 'some parameters')
       a2 = logging.LoggerAdapter(logging.getLogger('d.e.f'), ConnInfo())
       for x in range(10):
           lvl = choice(levels)
           lvlname = logging.getLevelName(lvl)
           a2.log(lvl, 'A message at %s level with %d %s', lvlname, 2, 'parameters')

When this script is run, the output should look something like this:

   2008-01-18 14:49:54,023 a.b.c DEBUG    IP: 123.231.231.123 User: sheila   A debug message
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,023 a.b.c INFO     IP: 123.231.231.123 User: sheila   An info message with some parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,023 d.e.f CRITICAL IP: 192.168.0.1     User: jim      A message at CRITICAL level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f INFO     IP: 192.168.0.1     User: jim      A message at INFO level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f WARNING  IP: 192.168.0.1     User: sheila   A message at WARNING level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f ERROR    IP: 127.0.0.1       User: fred     A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f ERROR    IP: 127.0.0.1       User: sheila   A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f WARNING  IP: 192.168.0.1     User: sheila   A message at WARNING level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f WARNING  IP: 192.168.0.1     User: jim      A message at WARNING level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f INFO     IP: 192.168.0.1     User: fred     A message at INFO level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f WARNING  IP: 192.168.0.1     User: sheila   A message at WARNING level with 2 parameters
   2008-01-18 14:49:54,033 d.e.f WARNING  IP: 127.0.0.1       User: jim      A message at WARNING level with 2 parameters


Using Filters to impart contextual information
----------------------------------------------

You can also add contextual information to log output using a user-
defined ``Filter``. ``Filter`` instances are allowed to modify the
``LogRecords`` passed to them, including adding additional attributes
which can then be output using a suitable format string, or if needed
a custom ``Formatter``.

For example in a web application, the request being processed (or at
least, the interesting parts of it) can be stored in a threadlocal
(``threading.local``) variable, and then accessed from a ``Filter`` to
add, say, information from the request - say, the remote IP address
and remote user's username - to the ``LogRecord``, using the attribute
names 'ip' and 'user' as in the ``LoggerAdapter`` example above. In
that case, the same format string can be used to get similar output to
that shown above. Here's an example script:

   import logging
   from random import choice

   class ContextFilter(logging.Filter):
       """
       This is a filter which injects contextual information into the log.

       Rather than use actual contextual information, we just use random
       data in this demo.
       """

       USERS = ['jim', 'fred', 'sheila']
       IPS = ['123.231.231.123', '127.0.0.1', '192.168.0.1']

       def filter(self, record):

           record.ip = choice(ContextFilter.IPS)
           record.user = choice(ContextFilter.USERS)
           return True

   if __name__ == '__main__':
      levels = (logging.DEBUG, logging.INFO, logging.WARNING, logging.ERROR, logging.CRITICAL)
      logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG,
                          format='%(asctime)-15s %(name)-5s %(levelname)-8s IP: %(ip)-15s User: %(user)-8s %(message)s')
      a1 = logging.getLogger('a.b.c')
      a2 = logging.getLogger('d.e.f')

      f = ContextFilter()
      a1.addFilter(f)
      a2.addFilter(f)
      a1.debug('A debug message')
      a1.info('An info message with %s', 'some parameters')
      for x in range(10):
          lvl = choice(levels)
          lvlname = logging.getLevelName(lvl)
          a2.log(lvl, 'A message at %s level with %d %s', lvlname, 2, 'parameters')

which, when run, produces something like:

   2010-09-06 22:38:15,292 a.b.c DEBUG    IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred     A debug message
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 a.b.c INFO     IP: 192.168.0.1     User: sheila   An info message with some parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f CRITICAL IP: 127.0.0.1       User: sheila   A message at CRITICAL level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f ERROR    IP: 127.0.0.1       User: jim      A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f DEBUG    IP: 127.0.0.1       User: sheila   A message at DEBUG level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f ERROR    IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred     A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f CRITICAL IP: 192.168.0.1     User: jim      A message at CRITICAL level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f CRITICAL IP: 127.0.0.1       User: sheila   A message at CRITICAL level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,300 d.e.f DEBUG    IP: 192.168.0.1     User: jim      A message at DEBUG level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,301 d.e.f ERROR    IP: 127.0.0.1       User: sheila   A message at ERROR level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,301 d.e.f DEBUG    IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred     A message at DEBUG level with 2 parameters
   2010-09-06 22:38:15,301 d.e.f INFO     IP: 123.231.231.123 User: fred     A message at INFO level with 2 parameters


Logging to a single file from multiple processes
================================================

Although logging is thread-safe, and logging to a single file from
multiple threads in a single process *is* supported, logging to a
single file from *multiple processes* is *not* supported, because
there is no standard way to serialize access to a single file across
multiple processes in Python. If you need to log to a single file from
multiple processes, one way of doing this is to have all the processes
log to a ``SocketHandler``, and have a separate process which
implements a socket server which reads from the socket and logs to
file. (If you prefer, you can dedicate one thread in one of the
existing processes to perform this function.) *This section* documents
this approach in more detail and includes a working socket receiver
which can be used as a starting point for you to adapt in your own
applications.

If you are using a recent version of Python which includes the
``multiprocessing`` module, you could write your own handler which
uses the ``Lock`` class from this module to serialize access to the
file from your processes. The existing ``FileHandler`` and subclasses
do not make use of ``multiprocessing`` at present, though they may do
so in the future. Note that at present, the ``multiprocessing`` module
does not provide working lock functionality on all platforms (see
http://bugs.python.org/issue3770).


Using file rotation
===================

Sometimes you want to let a log file grow to a certain size, then open
a new file and log to that. You may want to keep a certain number of
these files, and when that many files have been created, rotate the
files so that the number of files and the size of the files both
remain bounded. For this usage pattern, the logging package provides a
``RotatingFileHandler``:

   import glob
   import logging
   import logging.handlers

   LOG_FILENAME = 'logging_rotatingfile_example.out'

   # Set up a specific logger with our desired output level
   my_logger = logging.getLogger('MyLogger')
   my_logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

   # Add the log message handler to the logger
   handler = logging.handlers.RotatingFileHandler(
                 LOG_FILENAME, maxBytes=20, backupCount=5)

   my_logger.addHandler(handler)

   # Log some messages
   for i in range(20):
       my_logger.debug('i = %d' % i)

   # See what files are created
   logfiles = glob.glob('%s*' % LOG_FILENAME)

   for filename in logfiles:
       print(filename)

The result should be 6 separate files, each with part of the log
history for the application:

   logging_rotatingfile_example.out
   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.1
   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.2
   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.3
   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.4
   logging_rotatingfile_example.out.5

The most current file is always ``logging_rotatingfile_example.out``,
and each time it reaches the size limit it is renamed with the suffix
``.1``. Each of the existing backup files is renamed to increment the
suffix (``.1`` becomes ``.2``, etc.)  and the ``.6`` file is erased.

Obviously this example sets the log length much too small as an
extreme example.  You would want to set *maxBytes* to an appropriate
value.


An example dictionary-based configuration
=========================================

Below is an example of a logging configuration dictionary - it's taken
from the documentation on the Django project. This dictionary is
passed to ``dictConfig()`` to put the configuration into effect:

   LOGGING = {
       'version': 1,
       'disable_existing_loggers': True,
       'formatters': {
           'verbose': {
               'format': '%(levelname)s %(asctime)s %(module)s %(process)d %(thread)d %(message)s'
           },
           'simple': {
               'format': '%(levelname)s %(message)s'
           },
       },
       'filters': {
           'special': {
               '()': 'project.logging.SpecialFilter',
               'foo': 'bar',
           }
       },
       'handlers': {
           'null': {
               'level':'DEBUG',
               'class':'django.utils.log.NullHandler',
           },
           'console':{
               'level':'DEBUG',
               'class':'logging.StreamHandler',
               'formatter': 'simple'
           },
           'mail_admins': {
               'level': 'ERROR',
               'class': 'django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler',
               'filters': ['special']
           }
       },
       'loggers': {
           'django': {
               'handlers':['null'],
               'propagate': True,
               'level':'INFO',
           },
           'django.request': {
               'handlers': ['mail_admins'],
               'level': 'ERROR',
               'propagate': False,
           },
           'myproject.custom': {
               'handlers': ['console', 'mail_admins'],
               'level': 'INFO',
               'filters': ['special']
           }
       }
   }

For more information about this configuration, you can see the
relevant section of the Django documentation.


Inserting a BOM into messages sent to a SysLogHandler
=====================================================

RFC 5424 requires that a Unicode message be sent to a syslog daemon as
a set of bytes which have the following structure: an optional pure-
ASCII component, followed by a UTF-8 Byte Order Mark (BOM), followed
by Unicode encoded using UTF-8. (See the relevant section of the
specification.)

In Python 2.6 and 2.7, code was added to ``SysLogHandler`` to insert a
BOM into the message, but unfortunately, it was implemented
incorrectly, with the BOM appearing at the beginning of the message
and hence not allowing any pure-ASCII component to appear before it.

As this behaviour is broken, the incorrect BOM insertion code is being
removed from Python 2.7.4 and later. However, it is not being
replaced, and if you want to produce RFC 5424-compliant messages which
include a BOM, an optional pure-ASCII sequence before it and arbitrary
Unicode after it, encoded using UTF-8, then you need to do the
following:

1. Attach a ``Formatter`` instance to your ``SysLogHandler`` instance,
   with a format string such as:

      u'ASCII section\ufeffUnicode section'

   The Unicode code point ``u'\ufeff'``, when encoded using UTF-8,
   will be encoded as a UTF-8 BOM -- the byte-string
   ``'\xef\xbb\xbf'``.

2. Replace the ASCII section with whatever placeholders you like, but
   make sure that the data that appears in there after substitution is
   always ASCII (that way, it will remain unchanged after UTF-8
   encoding).

3. Replace the Unicode section with whatever placeholders you like; if
   the data which appears there after substitution contains characters
   outside the ASCII range, that's fine -- it will be encoded using
   UTF-8.

If the formatted message is Unicode, it *will* be encoded using UTF-8
encoding by ``SysLogHandler``. If you follow the above rules, you
should be able to produce RFC 5424-compliant messages. If you don't,
logging may not complain, but your messages will not be RFC
5424-compliant, and your syslog daemon may complain.


Implementing structured logging
===============================

Although most logging messages are intended for reading by humans, and
thus not readily machine-parseable, there might be cirumstances where
you want to output messages in a structured format which *is* capable
of being parsed by a program (without needing complex regular
expressions to parse the log message). This is straightforward to
achieve using the logging package. There are a number of ways in which
this could be achieved, but the following is a simple approach which
uses JSON to serialise the event in a machine-parseable manner:

   import json
   import logging

   class StructuredMessage(object):
       def __init__(self, message, **kwargs):
           self.message = message
           self.kwargs = kwargs

       def __str__(self):
           return '%s >>> %s' % (self.message, json.dumps(self.kwargs))

   _ = StructuredMessage   # optional, to improve readability

   logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO, format='%(message)s')
   logging.info(_('message 1', foo='bar', bar='baz', num=123, fnum=123.456))

If the above script is run, it prints:

   message 1 >>> {"fnum": 123.456, "num": 123, "bar": "baz", "foo": "bar"}

Note that the order of items might be different according to the
version of Python used.

If you need more specialised processing, you can use a custom JSON
encoder, as in the following complete example:

   from __future__ import unicode_literals

   import json
   import logging

   # This next bit is to ensure the script runs unchanged on 2.x and 3.x
   try:
       unicode
   except NameError:
       unicode = str

   class Encoder(json.JSONEncoder):
       def default(self, o):
           if isinstance(o, set):
               return tuple(o)
           elif isinstance(o, unicode):
               return o.encode('unicode_escape').decode('ascii')
           return super(Encoder, self).default(o)

   class StructuredMessage(object):
       def __init__(self, message, **kwargs):
           self.message = message
           self.kwargs = kwargs

       def __str__(self):
           s = Encoder().encode(self.kwargs)
           return '%s >>> %s' % (self.message, s)

   _ = StructuredMessage   # optional, to improve readability

   def main():
       logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO, format='%(message)s')
       logging.info(_('message 1', set_value=set([1, 2, 3]), snowman='\u2603'))

   if __name__ == '__main__':
       main()

When the above script is run, it prints:

   message 1 >>> {"snowman": "\u2603", "set_value": [1, 2, 3]}

Note that the order of items might be different according to the
version of Python used.
