How to implement logging for an imported module?

Robert Latest boblatest at yahoo.com
Mon Mar 15 04:47:54 EDT 2021


Richard Damon wrote:
> On 3/8/21 4:16 AM, Robert Latest via Python-list wrote:
>> Joseph L. Casale wrote:
>>>> I couldn't find any information on how to implement logging in a library
>>>> that doesn't know the name of the application that uses it. How is that
>>>> done?
>>> That's not how it works, it is the opposite. You need to know the name of
>>> its logger, and since you imported it, you do.
>> [much snipping]
>>
>>> Last word of advice, don't fight it by hacking up or patching (somehow?),
>>> it will simply not work right for any other case even slightly different
>>> than the one you somehow beat into submission.
>> I didn't waht to hack the logging system, it's just that I wasn't sure of
>> its design principles. I had hoped that if I set up a logger (including
>> levels and formatter) in my main app, the loggers in the imported modules
>> would somwhow automagically follow suit. Now I understand that for each
>> imported module I must import its logger, too, and decide how to deal with
>> its messages.
>>
>>
> Each instance of the logger inherents from a 'parent' logger, except for the
> top level logger which has the name None (as in the singleton of NoneType),
> and unless told otherwise will inherit it properties from its parent.
>
> Thus, if you get the root logger with logging.getLogger() you can set
> properties there, and unless a child logger has specifical been told not to
> inherit or has been specifically given a different value.
>
> General convention is that modules will use their name as the name of their
> logger, as that is generally unique.
>

I must admit I'm still struggling with the very basics of logging. I don't
understand the behavior of the code samples below at all, see comments.
It seems that logging.debug() et al have some side effects that are required
to get a logger to notice its level in the first place.


# Example 1:
# Why does the logger "mylog" require
# a call to the root logger in order to work?

import logging

mylog = logging.getLogger('foo')
mylog.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

mylog.debug('1 mylog.debug()')   # prints nothing
logging.debug('2 logging.debug()') # prints nothing
mylog.debug('3 mylog.debug()')   # works


# Example 2:
# Why do I have to call 'logging.debug' before the root
# logger works?

import logging

mylog = logging.getLogger() # now mylog is the root logger
mylog.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # setting level of root logger

mylog.debug('1 mylog.debug()')   # prints nothing, why?
logging.debug('2 logging.debug()') # works
mylog.debug('3 mylog.debug()')   # works



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