Question

I’m trying to customize my Magento’s log directory, by setting log_dir in the Mage::app() $options, but it’s still logging to var/log/file.log.

Note: I couldn’t find this information very readily on SO or the web in general, so I felt it needed to be SO’d.

Answer 1

So it turns out that (as of 1.6.2.0 at least), Magento doesn’t actually use the Mage::getBaseDir('log') within it’s log() method – weak sauce, right?

It uses Mage::getBaseDir('var') and appends log and then the file name that you pass in.

If you want to customize the directory more than that, you have to get your hands a little dirty. For example, in our case, we wanted the log directory to be:

var/username/log/file.log

So here’s how you bust it. Drop this in your config.xml to tell Magento about your new logging class:

    <log>
        <core>
            <writer_model>Name_Module_Model_Zend_Log_Writer_Stream</writer_model>
        </core>
    </log>

Then, create a model:

class Name_Module_Model_Zend_Log_Writer_Stream extends Zend_Log_Writer_Stream

Then, proceed to do what you needs to do. In my case, it went something like this:

public function __construct($streamOrUrl, $mode = NULL)
{        
    $newLogPath = $this->_workMyMagicOnLogFilePath($streamOrUrl, $mode);

    return parent::__construct($newLogPath, $mode);
}