Re: Balsa's terminal logging

[Peter Bloomfield <PeterBloomfield bellsouth net>]

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Hi Albrecht:

On 01/05/2018 10:28:44 AM Fri, Albrecht Dreß wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I noticed that Balsa uses a variety of methods to print messages typically used for error reporting or for 
> /very/ low-level debugging to the terminal (note: *not* via libbalsa_information):
> * fprintf(stderr, …), sometimes depending on balsa_app.debug
> * printf(…), sometimes depending on balsa_app.debug
> * g_print(…), sometimes depending on balsa_app.debug (prints to stdout)
> * g_printerr(…) (prints to stderr)
> * g_debug (prints to stdout)
> * g_error (prints to stderr)
> * g_message (ditto)
> * g_warning (ditto)
>
> This is somewhat confusing, clutters up the xsession log files, and is not always helpful for real debugging, 
> as it lacks timing and thread information (e.g. g_debug() output from parallel POP3 or SMTP operations in 
> different threads).

Agreed! Organization of these messages is long overdue :-)

> My idea is to write our own g_log default handler, which includes all this extra information, and 
> /exclusively/ use g_log(…) and the related convenience macros to emit any information.  The output could look 
> like
>
> 2018-01-05T14:55:42.161399Z balsa:(main) WARNING[libbalsa]: some message from libbalsa
> 2018-01-05T14:55:42.161414Z balsa:4008e0 ERROR[default]: error message from thread 0x4008e0
> iso8601 time stamp                thread level[domain]
>
> I'm not sure if the domain is of any use (probably not), so we could just omit it.

If that is the domain that is selected in G_MESSAGES_DEBUG, I feel that we should start using it. Running Balsa with 
"G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all" sometimes spews messages from many other uninteresting domains!

> Our log handler should evaluate the balsa_app.debug setting and the G_MESSAGES_DEBUG environment variable:
> * levels ERROR, CRITICAL, WARNING, MESSAGE: always print to stderr
> * level INFO: print to stdout only if balsa_app.debug is TRUE, and maybe G_MESSAGES_DEBUG is defined
> * level DEBUG: print to stdout only if G_MESSAGES_DEBUG is defined
>
> The calls to [f]printf, g_print and g_printerr need to be converted to the appropriate macros:
> * fprintf 🠆 g_info() for balsa_app.debug, g_warning() or g_error() otherwise
> * printf and g_print 🠆 g_info() for balsa_app.debug, g_message() otherwise
> * g_printerr 🠆 g_warning() or g_error()
>
> What do you think about this idea?  As always, any comment is welcome!
>
> Cheers,
> Albrecht.

It looks like a very useful discipline to me.

Best,

Peter
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