Logging Facility Built Into REAL Studio

REAL Studio 2010 has its own logging facility. Call the "System.Log" command, passing 2 arguments:

• Integer, the level of logging.
• String, the message to be logged.

You can find 9 constants for that number in System.LogLevelXXX:

• LogLevelEmergency = 1000
• LogLevelAlert = 1001
• LogLevelCritical = 1002
• LogLevelError = 1003
• LogLevelWarning = 1004
• LogLevelNotice = 1005
• LogLevelInformation = 1006
• LogLevelDebug = 1007
• LogLevelSuccess = 1008

Note that this is different than the 6 log levels used by the Apache Commons Logging project. You might think that after a few decades the computing industry would standardize on this stuff, but no.

Example usage:

  System.Log( System.LogLevelInformation, "Your Message Goes Here" )

Messages you pass appear in the host OS' logging tools. On Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6:

1. Run the "Console" app.
2. Click the "Show Log List" toolbar button.
3. Select the first item beneath "Files": "system.log".
   Your messages should appear there.

One BIG catch with this facility: Not all the log level constants work on Mac OS X. As documented, and as tested by me in REAL Studio 2010 Release 5, the 3 most benign log levels fail on a Mac:

• LogLevelInformation = 1006
• LogLevelDebug = 1007
• LogLevelSuccess = 1008

So, only use the following on a Mac.

• LogLevelEmergency = 1000
• LogLevelAlert = 1001
• LogLevelCritical = 1002
• LogLevelError = 1003
• LogLevelWarning = 1004
• LogLevelNotice = 1005

This is an annoying issue. I recommend writing your own wrapper based on the Apache Commons Logging project by using an Interface to make logging calls throughout your app. Use the "LogLevelNotice" to report all the benign levels.