Provided by: liblog-agent-perl_1.000-1_all 
NAME
Log::Agent::Driver - ancestor class for all Log::Agent drivers
SYNOPSIS
@Log::Agent::Driver::XXX::ISA = qw(Log::Agent::Driver);
DESCRIPTION
The Log::Agent::Driver class is the root class from which all Log::Agent drivers inherit.
It is a deferred class, meaning that it cannot be instantiated directly. All the deferred
routines need to be implemented by its heirs to form a valid driver.
A deferred routine is a routine whose signature and semantics (pre and post conditions,
formally) are specified, but not implemented. It allows specification of high-level
processings in terms of them, thereby factorizing common code in the ancestors without
loosing specialization benefits.
DRIVER LIST
The following drivers are currently fully implemented:
Log::Agent::Driver::Default
This is the default driver which remaps to simple print(), warn() and die() Perl
calls.
Log::Agent::Driver::File
This driver redirects logs to files. Each logging channel may go to a dedicated file.
Log::Agent::Driver::Silent
Silence all the logxxx() routines.
Log::Agent::Driver::Syslog
This driver redirects logs to the syslogd(8) daemon, which will then handle the
dispatching to various logfiles, based on its own configuration.
INTERFACE
You need not read this section if you're only using Log::Agent. However, if you wish to
implement another driver, then you should probably read it a few times.
The following routines are deferred and therefore need to be defined by the heir:
channel_eq($chan1, $chan2)
Returns true when both channels $chan1 and $chan2 send their output to the same place.
The purpose is not to have a 100% accurate comparison, which is almost impossible for
the Log::Agent::Driver::File driver, but to reasonably detect similarities to avoid
duplicating messages to the same output when Carp::Datum is installed and activated.
write($channel, $priority, $logstring)
Emit the log entry held in $logstring, at priority $priority and through the specfied
$channel name. A trailing "\n" is to be added if needed, but the $logstring should not
already have one.
The $channel name is just a string, and it is up to the driver to map that name to an
output device using its own configuration information. The generic logxxx() routines
use only "error", "output" or "debug" for channel names.
The $priority entry is assumed to have passed through the map_pri() routine, which by
default returns an empty string (only the Log::Agent::Driver::Syslog driver needs a
priority, for now). Ignore if you don't need that, or redefine map_pri().
The $logstring may not really be a plain string. It can actually be a
Log::Agent::Message object with an overloaded stringification routine, so the illusion
should be complete.
make
This is the creation routine. Its signature varies for each driver, naturally.
prefix_msg($str)
Prefix the log message string (a Log::Agent::Message object) with driver-specific
information (like the configured prefix, the PID of the process, etc...).
Must return the prefixed string, either as a Log::Agent::Message object or as a plain
string. This means you may use normal string operations on the $str variable and let
the overloaded stringification perform its magic. Or you may return the $str parameter
without modification.
There is no default implementation here because this is too driver-specific to choose
one good default. And I like making things explicit sometimes.
The following routines are implemented in terms of write(), map_pri() and prefix_msg().
The default implementation may need to be redefined for performance or tuning reasons, but
simply defining the deferred routines above should bring a reasonable behaviour.
As an example, here is the default logsay() implementation, which uses the emit() wrapper
(see below):
sub logsay {
my $self = shift;
my ($str) = @_;
$self->emit('output', 'notice', $str);
}
Yes, we do show the gory details in a manpage, but inheriting from a class is not for the
faint of heart, and requires getting acquainted with the implementation, most of the time.
The order is not alphabetical here but by increased level of severity (as expected,
anyway):
logwrite($channel, $priority, $level, $str)
Log message to the given channel, at the specified priority/level, obtained through a
call to map_pri().
logsay($str)
Log message to the "output" channel, at the "notice" priority.
logwarn($str)
Log warning to the "error" channel at the "warning" priority.
logxcarp($offset, $str)
Log warning to the "error" channel at the "warning" priority, from the perspective of
the caller. An additional $offset stack frames are skipped to find the caller (added
to the hardwired fixed offset imposed by the overall Log::Agent architecture).
logerr($str)
Log error to the "error" channel at the "error" priority.
logdie($str)
Log fatal error to the "error" channel at the "critical" priority and then call die()
with "$str\n" as argument.
logxcroak($offset, $str)
Log a fatal error, from the perspective of the caller. The error is logged to the
"error" channel at the "critical" priority and then Carp::croak() is called with
"$str\n" as argument. An additional $offset stack frames are skipped to find the
caller (added to the hardwired fixed offset imposed by the overall Log::Agent
architecture).
logconfess($str)
Confess a fatal error. The error is logged to the "error" channel at the "critical"
priority and then Carp::confess() is called with "$str\n" as argument.
The following routines have a default implementation but may be redefined for specific
drivers:
emit($channel, $prio, $str)
This is a convenient wrapper that calls:
write($channel, $self->priority($prio), $self->prefix_msg($str))
using dynamic binding.
map_pri($priority, $level)
Converts a ("priority", level) tupple to a single priority token suitable for emit().
By default, returns an empty string, which is OK only when emit() does not care!
The following routine is frozen. There is no way in Perl to freeze a routine, i.e. to
explicitly forbid any redefinition, so this is an informal notification:
priority($priority)
This routine returns the proper priority for emit() for each of the following strings:
"critical", "error", "warning" and "notice", which are the hardwired priority strings,
as documented above.
It derives a logging level from the $priority given and then returns the result of:
map_pri($priority, $level);
Therefore, only map_pri() should be redefined.
Finally, the following initialization routine is provided: to record the
_init($prefix, $penalty)
Records the "prefix" attribute, as well as the Carp "penalty" (amount of extra stack
frames to skip). Should be called in the constructor of all the drivers.
AUTHORS
Originally written by Raphael Manfredi <Raphael_Manfredi@pobox.com>, currently maintained
by Mark Rogaski <mrogaski@cpan.org>.
LICENSE
Copyright (C) 1999 Raphael Manfredi.
Copyright (C) 2002 Mark Rogaski; all rights reserved.
See Log::Agent(3) or the README file included with the distribution for license
information.
SEE ALSO
Log::Agent(3), Log::Agent::Driver::Default(3), Log::Agent::Driver::File(3),
Log::Agent::Driver::Fork(3), Log::Agent::Driver::Silent(3), Log::Agent::Driver::Syslog(3),
Carp::Datum(3).