Removing loggin g code in production environment

[Mani Venkatesan]

If I have logger code in my program and I want to remove the same in production, how will I do it? Why isnt there some conditional compilation feature in Java?

[Stefan Wagner]

There shouldn't be a compile- but a runtime-switch.

Removing logging-code from production-code isn't a good idea - there might be a situation, where you would be happy, if you could easily turn it on.

[Mani Venkatesan]

If the switch is introduced in the runtime code, then the logger code stays in the program and a small penalty is there in terms of a check to see if debug mode is ON. The size of my installation is also bigger.

[Robert Konigsberg]

C / C++ background, eh?

Perhaps you would be more comfortable with creating an interface like so:

public interface LogMechanism
{
   public void logMessage(...);
   public void logMessage(...);
   public void logMessage(...);
}
 
public class ActiveLogMechanism implements LogMechanism
{
   public ActiveLogMechanism(parameters) { /* initialize */ }
   public void logMessage(...) { /* implementation */ }
   public void logMessage(...) { /* implementation */ }
   public void logMessage(...) { /* implementation */ }
}
 
public class InactiveLogMechanism implements LogMechamism
{
   public void logMessage(...) { }
   public void logMessage(...) { }
   public void logMessage(...) { }
}