Improved logging

Back so soon? Great, well done!

In a production system, you might want to log to a database rather than a file - for example, if you have multiple front ends, you might not want to have to pick through each box's logs separately. Both have their advantages, of course - sometimes, it might be a single node that is exhibiting a problem. So, it's good to log locally, and also to have a shared log - perhaps to something like MongoDB or another database.

It's a good idea to make use of the full spectrum of logging levels. In development and debugging, you might want debug messages turned on, but in a production environment, it could well be overkill.

What's wrong with this picture?

Well, if you run your tests again (which, by the way, you should do if you make any changes. Sorry, I probably should have said that earlier! It helps to prevent bugs from creeping in!), you'll notice that, because we have a test that covers EmployeesController::index, that writes to the log file now! I don't particularly want my unit tests writing to the logs.

Once again, Li3 to the rescue! Li3 has the concept of environments - if you've done and Rails or Symfony2 or similar you'll probably be familiar with the concept. Generally, environments take the form of:

• test - running unit and integration tests.
• development - your workspace on your machine, as you're building and testing your app. Often kind of like a motorbike stripped down and strewn over the living room floor.
• production - the app in "running fully optimised" mode.

Logger is an adapter, and in Li3 all adapters accept the environment name as a key, we're going to tell Li3 "in test mode, only log emergencies" but to log more types of error in dev/production. Open up app/config/bootstrap/logging.php and change it to:

<?php
use lithium\analysis\Logger;

Logger::config(
    array ('default' =>
        array(
            'production' => array(
                'adapter' => 'File',
                'priority' => array('emergency', 'alert', 'critical', 'error')
            ),
            'development' => array(
                'adapter' => 'File',
                'priority' => array('emergency', 'alert', 'critical', 'error', 'warning')
            ),
            'test' => array(
                'adapter' => 'File',
                'priority' => array('emergency')
            )
    )
));
?>

This means that running tests won't spam our logs. Cool!

Do make sure that app/config/bootstrap/logging.php is included from app/config/bootstrap.php

As an exercise to the reader: rapzo on the #li3 channel pointed out that you can log per-environment. Why not give it a go?

16:43 <rapzo> you can name the logs according to the env
16:43 <rapzo> li3.me/docs/lithium/analysis/logger/adapter/File::__construct()

Remember that file based logs are output to app/resources/tmp/logs. Right that's it for logging for now - let's do some authentication!