From: Tim Pease <tim.pease@...>
Date: 2007-07-17T23:54:12+09:00
Subject: Re: log4r configuration: "/dev/null" outputter question

On 7/17/07, Ronald Fischer <ronald.fischer@venyon.com> wrote:
>
> The problem is what outputter to use to implement 'none'. My first idea
> to simply use FileOutputter('none',:filename => '/dev/null') does not
> work
> because my code is also supposed to run onder Windows where we don't
> have
> /dev/null.

There is a /dev/null equivalent on Windows, NUL:  You can use it in
this fashion ...

fn = test(?e, '/dev/null') ? '/dev/null' : 'NUL:'
fd = File.open(fn, 'w')

You can now write to that file descriptor and everything will go to
the bit bucket.

>
> My solution works, but I wonder whether I could make it simpler
> (i.e. without creating the NullOutputter class).
>

Certainly. Just create an instance of Outputter and then define the
methods you need.

out = Outputter.new 'tfwnull'
class << out
  def canonical_log(logevent) nil end
end

The canonical_log method is used by the outputters to format the log
event and then write the formatted output to a file. By setting this
to have a nil body, you will save a few cycles each time a log
messages needs to be generated.

Another options is just to set the global log level to 'off'. That is
left as an exercise for the reader ;-)

Blessings,
TwP