Question

In a python script I am writing, I am trying to log events using the logging module. I have the following code to configure my logger:

ERROR_FORMAT = "%(levelname)s at %(asctime)s in %(funcName)s in %(filename) at line %(lineno)d: %(message)s"
DEBUG_FORMAT = "%(lineno)d in %(filename)s at %(asctime)s: %(message)s"
LOG_CONFIG = {'version':1,
              'formatters':{'error':{'format':ERROR_FORMAT},
                            'debug':{'format':DEBUG_FORMAT}},
              'handlers':{'console':{'class':'logging.StreamHandler',
                                     'formatter':'debug',
                                     'level':logging.DEBUG},
                          'file':{'class':'logging.FileHandler',
                                  'filename':'/usr/local/logs/DatabaseUpdate.log',
                                  'formatter':'error',
                                  'level':logging.ERROR}},
              'root':{'handlers':('console', 'file')}}
logging.config.dictConfig(LOG_CONFIG)

When I try to run logging.debug("Some string"), I get no output to the console, even though this page in the docs says that logging.debug should have the root logger output the message. Why is my program not outputting anything, and how can I fix it?

Answer 1

The default logging level is warning.
Since you haven’t changed the level, the root logger’s level is still warning.
That means that it will ignore any logging with a level that is lower than warning, including debug loggings.

This is explained in the tutorial:

import logging
logging.warning('Watch out!') # will print a message to the console
logging.info('I told you so') # will not print anything

The ‘info’ line doesn’t print anything, because the level is higher than info.

To change the level, just set it in the root logger:

'root':{'handlers':('console', 'file'), 'level':'DEBUG'}

In other words, it’s not enough to define a handler with level=DEBUG, the actual logging level must also be DEBUG in order to get it to output anything.