[Python-Dev] Re: logging package -- spurious package contents

[Vinay Sajip]

> The submodule logging/config.py contains code that I feel should not
> be there.  I experimented with the config file format it implements,
> and it appears very painful.

It's not ideal, but a ConfigParser-based format seemed the thing to use
since it's already part of Python. You don't need to specify things twice -
that's a side effect of using the GUI configurator to create a config file.
(N.B. The GUI configurator is not part of the package proper.) For a
handler, you need only specify the class, the level, the formatter, and the
args for the constructor.

I agree that the config file format documentation leaves a lot of room for
improvement. But it's not as bad as all that, once you get past the original
irritation.

> Since configuring the logging package with a few programmatic calls is
> so easy, and applications that need serious logging configurability
> typically already have some configuration mechanism, I propose to drop
> this from the Python distribution.

-0.

> I'm similarly not convinced of the utility of the logging/handlers.py
> submodule, but I've never tried to use it, so lacking any particular
> negative experience all I can say against it is YAGNI.

-1. That may be because you've never yet wanted to do anything other than
log to console or file. I think it should be left in as without it, logging
is most definitely not "batteries included". For example, it provides
syslog, socket, datagram, email, HTTP and memory-buffering handlers.

Perhaps these questions could be asked on python-list? I am aware of many
users who use the handlers in the logging.handlers module (though there are
fewer who have given feedback about the config capability).

Vinay