Question

I’m aware that Rails has a few different levels for logging, but how can I only log the things I want it to, or rather, I only want things in my log that I specify with logger.debug

Is it possible to create my own logging level?

Also (last part of my question I swear) it seems that when Rails is in development mode, it ignores my logging level I choose in config/environment/development.rb

Answer 1

The debug log level is the lowest on the importance totem pole. Setting the level to debug means you want all messages. If your purpose is to debug (as apposed to improve production performance), you can opt to post filter from the command line.

tail -f development.log | grep debug

If performance, privacy, security is your goal, you could open up the Logger class and override some methods

class Logger
    def warn
        #do nothing
    end

    def info
        #do nothing
    end

    def fatal
        #do nothing
    end

    def error
        #do nothing
    end
end

The log level in config/enfironment.rb will override all environments (development, production, etc) – this could explain why your development settings are getting ignored.