Logging

See the Logging API documentation, as well.

Logging in GnuCash

GnuCash leverages glib logging, with some historical and convenience macros. As of Winter 2007, GnuCash has an ad-hoc layer on top of glib's "gmessage.h" logging inspired by log4j. In short, *messages* are logged in a given *log-domain* and at a specific *level*. The log-domain is a "."-separated path, and a table of log levels is configured. Between the two, a tree of log-level is established. Log messages are checked against the tree before being emitted.

log.conf

The special file ~/.gnucash/log.conf is checked for at gnucash start up; if present, its contents will configure the logging subsystem. The primary purpose of the configuration file it to setup a specific set of log-levels, though it's also useful for changing the default logging location from /tmp/gnucash.trace to stdout, stderr or another file.

The specific set of log paths that exist are going to be a function of the code at any given point, but some basic patterns will stabilize. As of Feb 13 2007, User:Jsled is using the following to generally raise the log level of the app, but also to get debugging detail about file-backend and UI code changes related to scheduled transactions:

   [levels]
   gnc=message
   
   gnc.bin=info
   gnc.gui=info
   gnc.backend.file=info
   
   gnc.engine.sx=debug
   gnc.app-util.sx=debug
   gnc.backend.file.sx=debug
   gnc.gui.sx=debug
   gnc.gui.frequency=debug
   
   GLib=error
   
   [output]
   to=stderr

Note that these settings are probably not suitable for your purpose, but serve as an example of what's possible.