Whiteflag API Logging

The common module lib/common/logger.js exposes functions to be used throughout the source code for logging messages from the running API.

Loglevel functions

The logging module exposes a logging function for each loglevel.

Level	Name	Usage
1	fatal	log an error that caused the process to abort
2	error	log an error that prevented a specific function to complete, but the process can continue
3	warn	log an encountered problem, but the specific function could continue
4	info	log useful information, typically used for startup and configuration information
5	debug	log detailed behaviour during development and for validation
6	trace	log very detailed processing steps for fault isolation

The loglevel is set in the config/api.toml configuration file. All logging functions will only process the provided logging message if the loglevel is equal to or higher than the loglevel corresponding with the function. For example, if the loglevel is set to 3, only the fatal, error, and warn functions will process the provided log message.

Logging functionality

Currently, the logging functions only pass the logging information to the global console, which is a special instance of the JavaScript Console class, whose output is sent to process.stdout and process.stderr.

Usage of the log functions

To use the logging function in a module, require the common logger module:

const log = require('./common/errors.js');

Then use the functions to log messages at the different levels:

const MODULELOG = 'someModule';
log.info(MODULELOG, 'This message provides some useful information');
log.debug(MODULELOG, 'This message provides debugging information');
// etc.