Logging preferences for Log and Trace Analyzer

The Logging preferences window (Window > Preferences > Logging ) enables you to specify your preferences for the level of messages that are recorded in the log file, CommonBaseEvents.xml (located in the workspace/.metadata directory), which is written to by the product's plug-ins. It also enables you to set the number of days after which the archived log file will be deleted.

This log file is usually of interest to plug-in developers. A new CommonBaseEvents.xml file will be created every time you start the workbench and the previous CommonBaseEvents.xml file will be archived.

The logging preferences page consists of these tabs: General and Loggers.

The General logging preferences tab

This tab displays the workbench default logging options, and has the following fields:

Default logging level

This is the default logging level applied to all loggers (unless a specific logging level has been set on the Loggers tab; see below). The default level is specified by the com.ibm.etools.common.logging.commonLoggingDefaultOptions extension point, and is initially set to NONE.

Only messages with the same or higher logging level than the logging level that is selected will be logged to the CommonBaseEvents.xml file. If NONE is selected, no messages are logged. For more details, see the order of logging levels information for the Logging Level setting.

Archived file days
Set the number of days after which archived log files will be deleted. The default is 7 days. If you specify 0 for the number of days, the archived files will never be deleted. An archived log file is created each time the Workbench is started, to store the logging information from the previous session.
 
Archived file names have the form CommonBaseEventstimestamp.xml where timestamp is the standard JavaTM timestamp (the time in milliseconds between the exact time when the files were archived and midnight, January 1, 1970 Universal Time Coordinate (UTC)). For example, a file archived at 11:30:20 a.m. EDT on the 6th of June, 2002 will have the name CommonBaseEvents1023377420784.xml.

The Loggers logging preferences tab

The Loggers tab displays the plug-ins implementing the com.ibm.etools.common.logging.commonLoggingOptions extension point, which is defined by the com.ibm.etools.common.logging plug-in.

The table has the following columns:

Logger Name
The name of the logger, specified by the commonLoggingOptions extension point. If no name is specified, the default logging name will be used, defined by the com.ibm.etools.common.logging.commonLoggingDefault extension point.
 
Logging Level
The logging level, specified by the commonLoggingOptions extension point. The logging level is that level at which messages with a certain degree of detail and less will be recorded in the log file. That is, the higher the logging level, the less the amount of information logged. Only messages with the same or higher logging level than the logging level that is selected (that is, specified by the loggingOptions extension point) will be logged to the CommonBaseEvents.xml file. When the level that is selected is NONE, no messages are logged.

To change the logging level setting, click on the cell and select the new value from the drop-down list, or select the row you want to change and click Edit.

The order of logging levels is as follows:

  1. ALL (all information logged)
        ALL indicates that all messages should be logged.
  2. FINEST (lowest level: most information logged)
        FINEST indicates a highly detailed tracing message
  3. FINER
        FINER indicates a fairly detailed tracing message.
  4. FINE
        FINE is a message level providing tracing information.
  5. CONFIG
        CONFIG is a message level for static configuration messages.
  6. INFO
        INFO is a message level for informational messages.
  7. WARNING
        WARNING is a message level indicating a potential problem.
  8. SEVERE (highest level: least information logged)
        SEVERE is a message level indicating a serious failure.
  9. NONE (no logging)
        NONE is a special level that can be used to turn off logging.

For example, if you select WARNING, SEVERE messages will be included but INFO messages will not.

Note:

Related tasks
Configuring plug-in logging using the Logging preferences window
Configuring plug-in logging using the plugin.xml file