DO NOT REPLY [Bug 16229] New: - Convenience methods to cut execution speed in application code

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http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=16229

Convenience methods to cut execution speed in application code

           Summary: Convenience methods to cut execution speed in
                    application code
           Product: Log4j
           Version: 1.2
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Windows NT/2K
            Status: NEW
          Severity: Enhancement
          Priority: Other
         Component: Other
        AssignedTo: log4j-dev@jakarta.apache.org
        ReportedBy: linus@tigris.org


In my application (ArgoUML) there are a lot of places where log4j is called 
with the debug level. Some of them are like this (actual examples):
    cat.debug("applying critic: " + _headline);
...
    cat.debug(d + " " + d.getPriority());
...
          Configuration.cat.debug("key '" + key
                                  + "' returns '" + result + "'");

This all seems very harmless, and most of my developers don't (and shouldn't) 
hesitate in adding such lines to the code. Now let me tell you that my 
profilation of the application lead to the fact that the first line was doing 
18% of all memory allocation as innocent as it may seem (with debug turned off).

The log4j faq suggests that we should replace
          cat.debug("we now have " + value)
with
          if (cat.isDebugEnabled()) {
              cat.debug("we now have " + value);
          }
but this code really makes the log4j-calls stand out and clutter the 
application code.

Let me suggest that the following convenience methods (with friends) are added 
to the Logger class to fix this problem (I am not sure this exact 
implementation work but I hope you get the general idea):

    void debug(Object mess1, Object mess2) {
        if (isDebugEnabled()) {
            debug("" + mess1 + mess2);
        }
    }
    void debug(Object mess1, Object mess2, Object mess3) {
        if (isDebugEnabled()) {
            debug("" + mess1 + mess2 + mess3);
        }
    }
    void debug(Object mess1, Object mess2, Object mess3, Object mess4) {
        if (isDebugEnabled()) {
            debug("" + mess1 + mess2 + mess3 + mess4);
        }
    }
    void debug(Object mess1, Object mess2, Object mess3, Object mess4, Object 
mess5) {
        if (isDebugEnabled()) {
            debug("" + mess1 + mess2 + mess3 + mess4 + mess5);
        }
    }

These would allow me to write the code like this:
    cat.debug("applying critic: ", _headline);
...
    cat.debug(d, " ", d.getPriority());
...
          Configuration.cat.debug("key '", key, "' returns '", result, "'");

a beautiful and efficient implementation.

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