Logging

The VXSDR library has an internal logging capability, used to record events in the library and notify the user of errors. Logging is based on spdlog (https://github.com/gabime/spdlog), and is designed not to interfere with any logging your program might do, even if your program also uses spdlog.

You can disable library logging by setting the option VXSDR_ENABLE_LOGGING=OFF on the cmake command line.

There are two types of log possible, a log sent to the console (standard error) and a log sent to a file. Each of these can have their logging level and their log entry pattern independently selected at runtime using environment variables.

Note that the environment variable names used to configure library logging are different from the names spdlog uses, so you can use spdlog in your program (if you wish) and have separate settings for logging from your program and the library

The logging levels for the console and the log file can be set independently using one of these letter codes:

Code	Meaning
‘O’ or ‘N’	no logging at all
‘T’	trace level (currently not used)
‘D’	debug level
‘I’	info level (reasonable for normal use)
‘W’	warning level (something might be wrong)
‘E’	error level (something is definitely wrong)
‘F’ or ‘C’	fatal error (stopping)

The environment variables that can be used for customization, and their defaults, are shown below.

• VXSDR_LIB_LOG_CONSOLE_LEVEL

  default: “W” = warn

• VXSDR_LIB_LOG_CONSOLE_PATTERN

  default: “[%n:%l] %v” = [libvxsdr:<log level>] <message>

• VXSDR_LIB_LOG_FILE_LEVEL

  default: “N” = none

• VXSDR_LIB_LOG_FILE_PATTERN

  default: “[%Y-%m-%d %T.%f] [%t] [%L] %v” = [<timestamp>] [<thread-id>] [<1-letter level>] <message>

• VXSDR_LIB_LOG_FILE_NAME

  default: “libvxsdr”

• VXSDR_LIB_LOG_FILE_PATH

  default: “.” (directory where the program is run)

• VXSDR_LIB_LOG_FILE_NAME_TIME_FORMAT

  default: “%Y-%m-%d-%H.%M.%S”

The log entry patterns use the spdlog syntax; see https://github.com/gabime/spdlog/wiki/3.-Custom-formatting for all the choices.

The log file name time format allows a timestamp to be included in the logfile name so that successive runs do not overwrite the log. You are responsible for ensuring that all the characters in the time which results are legal for filenames in your operating system (for example, ‘:’ is not allowed for most OS).

If you wish to use more of spdlog’s capabilities to customize library logging, those changes should be made in logging.hpp and logging.cpp.