Re: C++ - Question on how to handle logging options for Linux/Windows

[Andrew Stitcher <as...@redhat.com>]

On Fri, 2008-10-10 at 11:04 -0400, Steve Huston wrote:
> ...
> I see two ways to handle this, and I am asking for your discussion and
> advice.
> 
> 1. Remove the 'syslog' value from --log-output and add a new option to
> the platform-specific set; maybe --log-syslog yes|no
> 
> 2. Leave the options as they are and specialize just the syslog
> handling inside the code.
> 
> 3. Don't try to split into common and platform-specific options; just
> maintain completely separate option sets for each platform even though
> 90% of the code will be identical. At least to start...

I think I'd personally prefer a slightly different approach (well a
variant on #1 I suppose): Introduce a new option which is an explicit
logging sink.

The essential problem with the current command line interface is that it
overloads the filename with stuff not related to files at all. So what
I'd suggest is something like an extra option to direct logging output.

Something like:

--log-to <logfile | syslog | eventlog | ...>

then change the option name a bit for consistency with the log-to
option:

--logfile-out FILE (...)

Actually I'm not 100% we really need option to redirect the syslog
output, but that's a different discussion.

I'd guess this might be most easily implemented by introducing a plugin
type architcture for log sinks.

Does anyone else have comments?