A LogHandler is an implementation of a logging backend.

This type is an implementation detail and should not normally be used, unless implementing your own logging backend. To use the SwiftLog API, please refer to the documentation of Logger.

Implementation requirements

To implement your own LogHandler you should respect a few requirements that are necessary so applications work as expected regardless of the selected LogHandler implementation.

• The LogHandler must be a struct.
• The metadata and logLevel properties must be implemented so that setting them on a Logger does not affect other Loggers.

Treat log level & metadata as values

When developing your LogHandler, please make sure the following test works.

LoggingSystem.bootstrap(MyLogHandler.init) // your LogHandler might have a different bootstrapping step
var logger1 = Logger(label: "first logger")
logger1.logLevel = .debug
logger1[metadataKey: "only-on"] = "first"

var logger2 = logger1
logger2.logLevel = .error                  // this must not override `logger1`'s log level
logger2[metadataKey: "only-on"] = "second" // this must not override `logger1`'s metadata

XCTAssertEqual(.debug, logger1.logLevel)
XCTAssertEqual(.error, logger2.logLevel)
XCTAssertEqual("first", logger1[metadataKey: "only-on"])
XCTAssertEqual("second", logger2[metadataKey: "only-on"])

Special cases

In certain special cases, the log level behaving like a value on Logger might not be what you want. For example, you might want to set the log level across all Loggers to .debug when say a signal (eg. SIGUSR1) is received to be able to debug special failures in production. This special case is acceptable but we urge you to create a solution specific to your LogHandler implementation to achieve that. Please find an example implementation of this behavior below, on reception of the signal you would call LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride.overrideGlobalLogLevel = .debug, for example.

import class Foundation.NSLock

public struct LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride: LogHandler {
    // the static properties hold the globally overridden log level (if overridden)
    private static let overrideLock = NSLock()
    private static var overrideLogLevel: Logger.Level? = nil

    // this holds the log level if not overridden
    private var _logLevel: Logger.Level = .info

    // metadata storage
    public var metadata: Logger.Metadata = [:]

    public init(label: String) {
        // [...]
    }

    public var logLevel: Logger.Level {
        // when we get asked for the log level, we check if it was globally overridden or not
        get {
            LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride.overrideLock.lock()
            defer { LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride.overrideLock.unlock() }
            return LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride.overrideLogLevel ?? self._logLevel
        }
        // we set the log level whenever we're asked (note: this might not have an effect if globally
        // overridden)
        set {
            self._logLevel = newValue
        }
    }

    public func log(level: Logger.Level, message: Logger.Message, metadata: Logger.Metadata?,
                    source: String, file: String, function: String, line: UInt) {
        // [...]
    }

    public subscript(metadataKey metadataKey: String) -> Logger.Metadata.Value? {
        get {
            return self.metadata[metadataKey]
        }
        set(newValue) {
            self.metadata[metadataKey] = newValue
        }
    }

    // this is the function to globally override the log level, it is not part of the `LogHandler` protocol
    public static func overrideGlobalLogLevel(_ logLevel: Logger.Level) {
        LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride.overrideLock.lock()
        defer { LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride.overrideLock.unlock() }
        LogHandlerWithGlobalLogLevelOverride.overrideLogLevel = logLevel
    }
}

Please note that the above LogHandler will still pass the ‘log level is a value’ test above it iff the global log level has not been overridden. And most importantly it passes the requirement listed above: A change to the log level on one Logger should not affect the log level of another Logger variable.

See more

public protocol LogHandler