About Logger Services

The Logger Service class provides logging services for a plug-in. This class can do the following:

  • Capture a message in a log file.

  • Capture a message that is combined with an exception in a log file. This is useful to log an unexpected event from the catch block.

  • Log an IStatus object with the log(String msg, IStatus status) method in this class.

        IStatus is an interface in the Eclipse framework. The IStatus interface passes the outcome of an operation. Its object contains such details as the plug-in identifier, the severity, the status code, the message, and the exception. For more information about IStatus, consult the Eclipse documentation.

You can combine any of these logging capabilities in your plug-in.

The following describes the log levels and their common use in Sabre Red 360 by developers:

  • INFO is the global default setting in the logging service for Sabre Red 360. INFO captures important messages in the log file.

  • WARNING captures Sabre Red 360 and plug-in errors from which end-users can recover. The types of problem that are logged with WARNING do not prevent end-users from using Sabre Red 360.

  • SEVERE captures serious errors that either crash the plug-in or Sabre Red 360.

        For example, suppose that your plug-in connects to a database to extract data. You can use the INFO level to indicate that the data was extracted without any problems. If the connection to the database fails, you use the WARNING level to capture the error.

  • FINEST, FINE, and CONFIG - These levels capture messages that usually are not captured in log files, however, capturing them may help debugging a problem.

        For example, assume that your plug-in has complicated source code with nested if statements. The FINEST, FINE, and CONFIG levels can capture the statements that the program enters in order to identify problems.

Logging levels are defined in com.sabre.edge.platform.core.logging.types.Level.

The current implementation of Sabre Red 360 does not support the ability of developers to change log levels. The Sabre Red 360 administrator can set a level other than INFO for specific end-users in order to debug or diagnose problems.

        Caution!     Sabre Red 360 drops messages with log levels that are set lower than INFO.

Dependencies and Classes

Whether you are customizing Logger Service or creating the sample service that the procedure in this book builds, both Eclipse and Sabre Red 360 have defined some dependencies, extension points, and classes that are required to add Logger Service to a plug-in. They are listed below.

Minimum Required Dependencies

  • org.eclipse.ui

  • org.eclipse.core.runtime

  • com.sabre.edge.platform.core.logging

  • com.sabre.edge.platform.core.common. This is required when Activator extends AbstractEdgeBasePlugin.

Extension Points

Not applicable

Classes

  • Activator class

  • Extend com.sabre.edge.platform.core.common.AbstractEdgeBasePlugin.

  • ILoggerService

  • Any of the logging methods that this book describes.