phpman > perldoc > Log::Log4perl(3pm)

NAME
    Log::Log4perl - Log4j implementation for Perl

SYNOPSIS
                    # Easy mode if you like it simple ...

        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
        Log::Log4perl->easy_init($ERROR);

        DEBUG "This doesn't go anywhere";
        ERROR "This gets logged";

            # ... or standard mode for more features:

        Log::Log4perl::init('/etc/log4perl.conf');

        --or--

            # Check config every 10 secs
        Log::Log4perl::init_and_watch('/etc/log4perl.conf',10);

        --then--

        $logger = Log::Log4perl->get_logger('house.bedrm.desk.topdrwr');

        $logger->debug('this is a debug message');
        $logger->info('this is an info message');
        $logger->warn('etc');
        $logger->error('..');
        $logger->fatal('..');

        #####/etc/log4perl.conf###############################
        log4perl.logger.house              = WARN,  FileAppndr1
        log4perl.logger.house.bedroom.desk = DEBUG, FileAppndr1

        log4perl.appender.FileAppndr1      = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
        log4perl.appender.FileAppndr1.filename = desk.log
        log4perl.appender.FileAppndr1.layout   = \
                                Log::Log4perl::Layout::SimpleLayout
        ######################################################

ABSTRACT
    Log::Log4perl provides a powerful logging API for your application

DESCRIPTION
    Log::Log4perl lets you remote-control and fine-tune the logging behaviour of your system from
    the outside. It implements the widely popular (Java-based) Log4j logging package in pure Perl.

    For a detailed tutorial on Log::Log4perl usage, please read

    <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2002/09/11/log4perl.html>

    Logging beats a debugger if you want to know what's going on in your code during runtime.
    However, traditional logging packages are too static and generate a flood of log messages in
    your log files that won't help you.

    "Log::Log4perl" is different. It allows you to control the number of logging messages generated
    at three different levels:

    *   At a central location in your system (either in a configuration file or in the startup code)
        you specify *which components* (classes, functions) of your system should generate logs.

    *   You specify how detailed the logging of these components should be by specifying logging
        *levels*.

    *   You also specify which so-called *appenders* you want to feed your log messages to ("Print
        it to the screen and also append it to /tmp/my.log") and which format ("Write the date
        first, then the file name and line number, and then the log message") they should be in.

    This is a very powerful and flexible mechanism. You can turn on and off your logs at any time,
    specify the level of detail and make that dependent on the subsystem that's currently executed.

    Let me give you an example: You might find out that your system has a problem in the
    "MySystem::Helpers::ScanDir" component. Turning on detailed debugging logs all over the system
    would generate a flood of useless log messages and bog your system down beyond recognition. With
    "Log::Log4perl", however, you can tell the system: "Continue to log only severe errors to the
    log file. Open a second log file, turn on full debug logs in the "MySystem::Helpers::ScanDir"
    component and dump all messages originating from there into the new log file". And all this is
    possible by just changing the parameters in a configuration file, which your system can re-read
    even while it's running!

How to use it
    The "Log::Log4perl" package can be initialized in two ways: Either via Perl commands or via a
    "log4j"-style configuration file.

  Initialize via a configuration file
    This is the easiest way to prepare your system for using "Log::Log4perl". Use a configuration
    file like this:

        ############################################################
        # A simple root logger with a Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
        # file appender in Perl.
        ############################################################
        log4perl.rootLogger=ERROR, LOGFILE

        log4perl.appender.LOGFILE=Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
        log4perl.appender.LOGFILE.filename=/var/log/myerrs.log
        log4perl.appender.LOGFILE.mode=append

        log4perl.appender.LOGFILE.layout=PatternLayout
        log4perl.appender.LOGFILE.layout.ConversionPattern=[%r] %F %L %c - %m%n

    These lines define your standard logger that's appending severe errors to "/var/log/myerrs.log",
    using the format

        [millisecs] source-filename line-number class - message newline

    Assuming that this configuration file is saved as "log.conf", you need to read it in the startup
    section of your code, using the following commands:

      use Log::Log4perl;
      Log::Log4perl->init("log.conf");

    After that's done *somewhere* in the code, you can retrieve logger objects *anywhere* in the
    code. Note that there's no need to carry any logger references around with your functions and
    methods. You can get a logger anytime via a singleton mechanism:

        package My::MegaPackage;
        use  Log::Log4perl;

        sub some_method {
            my($param) = @_;

            my $log = Log::Log4perl->get_logger("My::MegaPackage");

            $log->debug("Debug message");
            $log->info("Info message");
            $log->error("Error message");

            ...
        }

    With the configuration file above, "Log::Log4perl" will write "Error message" to the specified
    log file, but won't do anything for the "debug()" and "info()" calls, because the log level has
    been set to "ERROR" for all components in the first line of configuration file shown above.

    Why "Log::Log4perl->get_logger" and not "Log::Log4perl->new"? We don't want to create a new
    object every time. Usually in OO-Programming, you create an object once and use the reference to
    it to call its methods. However, this requires that you pass around the object to all functions
    and the last thing we want is pollute each and every function/method we're using with a handle
    to the "Logger":

        sub function {  # Brrrr!!
            my($logger, $some, $other, $parameters) = @_;
        }

    Instead, if a function/method wants a reference to the logger, it just calls the Logger's static
    "get_logger($category)" method to obtain a reference to the *one and only* possible logger
    object of a certain category. That's called a *singleton* if you're a Gamma fan.

    How does the logger know which messages it is supposed to log and which ones to suppress?
    "Log::Log4perl" works with inheritance: The config file above didn't specify anything about
    "My::MegaPackage". And yet, we've defined a logger of the category "My::MegaPackage". In this
    case, "Log::Log4perl" will walk up the namespace hierarchy ("My" and then we're at the root) to
    figure out if a log level is defined somewhere. In the case above, the log level at the root
    (root *always* defines a log level, but not necessarily an appender) defines that the log level
    is supposed to be "ERROR" -- meaning that *DEBUG* and *INFO* messages are suppressed. Note that
    this 'inheritance' is unrelated to Perl's class inheritance, it is merely related to the logger
    namespace. By the way, if you're ever in doubt about what a logger's category is, use
    "$logger->category()" to retrieve it.

  Log Levels
    There are six predefined log levels: "FATAL", "ERROR", "WARN", "INFO", "DEBUG", and "TRACE" (in
    descending priority). Your configured logging level has to at least match the priority of the
    logging message.

    If your configured logging level is "WARN", then messages logged with "info()", "debug()", and
    "trace()" will be suppressed. "fatal()", "error()" and "warn()" will make their way through,
    because their priority is higher or equal than the configured setting.

    Instead of calling the methods

        $logger->trace("...");  # Log a trace message
        $logger->debug("...");  # Log a debug message
        $logger->info("...");   # Log a info message
        $logger->warn("...");   # Log a warn message
        $logger->error("...");  # Log a error message
        $logger->fatal("...");  # Log a fatal message

    you could also call the "log()" method with the appropriate level using the constants defined in
    "Log::Log4perl::Level":

        use Log::Log4perl::Level;

        $logger->log($TRACE, "...");
        $logger->log($DEBUG, "...");
        $logger->log($INFO, "...");
        $logger->log($WARN, "...");
        $logger->log($ERROR, "...");
        $logger->log($FATAL, "...");

    This form is rarely used, but it comes in handy if you want to log at different levels depending
    on an exit code of a function:

        $logger->log( $exit_level{ $rc }, "...");

    As for needing more logging levels than these predefined ones: It's usually best to steer your
    logging behaviour via the category mechanism instead.

    If you need to find out if the currently configured logging level would allow a logger's logging
    statement to go through, use the logger's "is_*level*()" methods:

        $logger->is_trace()    # True if trace messages would go through
        $logger->is_debug()    # True if debug messages would go through
        $logger->is_info()     # True if info messages would go through
        $logger->is_warn()     # True if warn messages would go through
        $logger->is_error()    # True if error messages would go through
        $logger->is_fatal()    # True if fatal messages would go through

    Example: "$logger->is_warn()" returns true if the logger's current level, as derived from either
    the logger's category (or, in absence of that, one of the logger's parent's level setting) is
    $WARN, $ERROR or $FATAL.

    Also available are a series of more Java-esque functions which return the same values. These are
    of the format "is*Level*Enabled()", so "$logger->isDebugEnabled()" is synonymous to
    "$logger->is_debug()".

    These level checking functions will come in handy later, when we want to block unnecessary
    expensive parameter construction in case the logging level is too low to log the statement
    anyway, like in:

        if($logger->is_error()) {
            $logger->error("Erroneous array: @super_long_array");
        }

    If we had just written

        $logger->error("Erroneous array: @super_long_array");

    then Perl would have interpolated @super_long_array into the string via an expensive operation
    only to figure out shortly after that the string can be ignored entirely because the configured
    logging level is lower than $ERROR.

    The to-be-logged message passed to all of the functions described above can consist of an
    arbitrary number of arguments, which the logging functions just chain together to a single
    string. Therefore

        $logger->debug("Hello ", "World", "!");  # and
        $logger->debug("Hello World!");

    are identical.

    Note that even if one of the methods above returns true, it doesn't necessarily mean that the
    message will actually get logged. What is_debug() checks is that the logger used is configured
    to let a message of the given priority (DEBUG) through. But after this check, Log4perl will
    eventually apply custom filters and forward the message to one or more appenders. None of this
    gets checked by is_xxx(), for the simple reason that it's impossible to know what a custom
    filter does with a message without having the actual message or what an appender does to a
    message without actually having it log it.

  Log and die or warn
    Often, when you croak / carp / warn / die, you want to log those messages. Rather than doing the
    following:

        $logger->fatal($err) && die($err);

    you can use the following:

        $logger->logdie($err);

    And if instead of using

        warn($message);
        $logger->warn($message);

    to both issue a warning via Perl's warn() mechanism and make sure you have the same message in
    the log file as well, use:

        $logger->logwarn($message);

    Since there is an ERROR level between WARN and FATAL, there are two additional helper functions
    in case you'd like to use ERROR for either warn() or die():

        $logger->error_warn();
        $logger->error_die();

    Finally, there's the Carp functions that, in addition to logging, also pass the stringified
    message to their companions in the Carp package:

        $logger->logcarp();        # warn w/ 1-level stack trace
        $logger->logcluck();       # warn w/ full stack trace
        $logger->logcroak();       # die w/ 1-level stack trace
        $logger->logconfess();     # die w/ full stack trace

  Appenders
    If you don't define any appenders, nothing will happen. Appenders will be triggered whenever the
    configured logging level requires a message to be logged and not suppressed.

    "Log::Log4perl" doesn't define any appenders by default, not even the root logger has one.

    "Log::Log4perl" already comes with a standard set of appenders:

        Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen
        Log::Log4perl::Appender::ScreenColoredLevels
        Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
        Log::Log4perl::Appender::Socket
        Log::Log4perl::Appender::DBI
        Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized
        Log::Log4perl::Appender::RRDs

    to log to the screen, to files and to databases.

    On CPAN, you can find additional appenders like

        Log::Log4perl::Layout::XMLLayout

    by Guido Carls <gcarls AT cpan.org>. It allows for hooking up Log::Log4perl with the graphical Log
    Analyzer Chainsaw (see "Can I use Log::Log4perl with log4j's Chainsaw?" in Log::Log4perl::FAQ).

  Additional Appenders via Log::Dispatch
    "Log::Log4perl" also supports *Dave Rolskys* excellent "Log::Dispatch" framework which
    implements a wide variety of different appenders.

    Here's the list of appender modules currently available via "Log::Dispatch":

           Log::Dispatch::ApacheLog
           Log::Dispatch::DBI (by Tatsuhiko Miyagawa)
           Log::Dispatch::Email,
           Log::Dispatch::Email::MailSend,
           Log::Dispatch::Email::MailSendmail,
           Log::Dispatch::Email::MIMELite
           Log::Dispatch::File
           Log::Dispatch::FileRotate (by Mark Pfeiffer)
           Log::Dispatch::Handle
           Log::Dispatch::Screen
           Log::Dispatch::Syslog
           Log::Dispatch::Tk (by Dominique Dumont)

    Please note that in order to use any of these additional appenders, you have to fetch
    Log::Dispatch from CPAN and install it. Also the particular appender you're using might require
    installing the particular module.

    For additional information on appenders, please check the Log::Log4perl::Appender manual page.

  Appender Example
    Now let's assume that we want to log "info()" or higher prioritized messages in the "Foo::Bar"
    category to both STDOUT and to a log file, say "test.log". In the initialization section of your
    system, just define two appenders using the readily available "Log::Log4perl::Appender::File"
    and "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen" modules:

      use Log::Log4perl;

         # Configuration in a string ...
      my $conf = q(
        log4perl.category.Foo.Bar          = INFO, Logfile, Screen

        log4perl.appender.Logfile          = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.filename = test.log
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout   = Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout.ConversionPattern = [%r] %F %L %m%n

        log4perl.appender.Screen         = Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen
        log4perl.appender.Screen.stderr  = 0
        log4perl.appender.Screen.layout = Log::Log4perl::Layout::SimpleLayout
      );

         # ... passed as a reference to init()
      Log::Log4perl::init( \$conf );

    Once the initialization shown above has happened once, typically in the startup code of your
    system, just use the defined logger anywhere in your system:

      ##########################
      # ... in some function ...
      ##########################
      my $log = Log::Log4perl::get_logger("Foo::Bar");

        # Logs both to STDOUT and to the file test.log
      $log->info("Important Info!");

    The "layout" settings specified in the configuration section define the format in which the
    message is going to be logged by the specified appender. The format shown for the file appender
    is logging not only the message but also the number of milliseconds since the program has
    started (%r), the name of the file the call to the logger has happened and the line number there
    (%F and %L), the message itself (%m) and a OS-specific newline character (%n):

        [187] ./myscript.pl 27 Important Info!

    The screen appender above, on the other hand, uses a "SimpleLayout", which logs the debug level,
    a hyphen (-) and the log message:

        INFO - Important Info!

    For more detailed info on layout formats, see "Log Layouts".

    In the configuration sample above, we chose to define a *category* logger ("Foo::Bar"). This
    will cause only messages originating from this specific category logger to be logged in the
    defined format and locations.

  Logging newlines
    There's some controversy between different logging systems as to when and where newlines are
    supposed to be added to logged messages.

    The Log4perl way is that a logging statement *should not* contain a newline:

        $logger->info("Some message");
        $logger->info("Another message");

    If this is supposed to end up in a log file like

        Some message
        Another message

    then an appropriate appender layout like "%m%n" will take care of adding a newline at the end of
    each message to make sure every message is printed on its own line.

    Other logging systems, Log::Dispatch in particular, recommend adding the newline to the log
    statement. This doesn't work well, however, if you, say, replace your file appender by a
    database appender, and all of a sudden those newlines scattered around the code don't make sense
    anymore.

    Assigning matching layouts to different appenders and leaving newlines out of the code solves
    this problem. If you inherited code that has logging statements with newlines and want to make
    it work with Log4perl, read the Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout documentation on how to
    accomplish that.

  Configuration files
    As shown above, you can define "Log::Log4perl" loggers both from within your Perl code or from
    configuration files. The latter have the unbeatable advantage that you can modify your system's
    logging behaviour without interfering with the code at all. So even if your code is being run by
    somebody who's totally oblivious to Perl, they still can adapt the module's logging behaviour to
    their needs.

    "Log::Log4perl" has been designed to understand "Log4j" configuration files -- as used by the
    original Java implementation. Instead of reiterating the format description in [2], let me just
    list three examples (also derived from [2]), which should also illustrate how it works:

        log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, A1
        log4j.appender.A1=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
        log4j.appender.A1.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
        log4j.appender.A1.layout.ConversionPattern=%-4r %-5p %c %x - %m%n

    This enables messages of priority "DEBUG" or higher in the root hierarchy and has the system
    write them to the console. "ConsoleAppender" is a Java appender, but "Log::Log4perl" jumps
    through a significant number of hoops internally to map these to their corresponding Perl
    classes, "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen" in this case.

    Second example:

        log4perl.rootLogger=DEBUG, A1
        log4perl.appender.A1=Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen
        log4perl.appender.A1.layout=PatternLayout
        log4perl.appender.A1.layout.ConversionPattern=%d %-5p %c - %m%n
        log4perl.logger.com.foo=WARN

    This defines two loggers: The root logger and the "com.foo" logger. The root logger is easily
    triggered by debug-messages, but the "com.foo" logger makes sure that messages issued within the
    "Com::Foo" component and below are only forwarded to the appender if they're of priority
    *warning* or higher.

    Note that the "com.foo" logger doesn't define an appender. Therefore, it will just propagate the
    message up the hierarchy until the root logger picks it up and forwards it to the one and only
    appender of the root category, using the format defined for it.

    Third example:

        log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, stdout, R
        log4j.appender.stdout=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
        log4j.appender.stdout.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
        log4j.appender.stdout.layout.ConversionPattern=%5p (%F:%L) - %m%n
        log4j.appender.R=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
        log4j.appender.R.File=example.log
        log4j.appender.R.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
        log4j.appender.R.layout.ConversionPattern=%p %c - %m%n

    The root logger defines two appenders here: "stdout", which uses
    "org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender" (ultimately mapped by "Log::Log4perl" to
    Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen) to write to the screen. And "R", a
    "org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender" (mapped by "Log::Log4perl" to Log::Dispatch::FileRotate
    with the "File" attribute specifying the log file.

    See Log::Log4perl::Config for more examples and syntax explanations.

  Log Layouts
    If the logging engine passes a message to an appender, because it thinks it should be logged,
    the appender doesn't just write it out haphazardly. There's ways to tell the appender how to
    format the message and add all sorts of interesting data to it: The date and time when the event
    happened, the file, the line number, the debug level of the logger and others.

    There's currently two layouts defined in "Log::Log4perl": "Log::Log4perl::Layout::SimpleLayout"
    and "Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout":

    "Log::Log4perl::SimpleLayout"
        formats a message in a simple way and just prepends it by the debug level and a hyphen:
        ""$level - $message", for example "FATAL - Can't open password file".

    "Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout"
        on the other hand is very powerful and allows for a very flexible format in "printf"-style.
        The format string can contain a number of placeholders which will be replaced by the logging
        engine when it's time to log the message:

            %c Category of the logging event.
            %C Fully qualified package (or class) name of the caller
            %d Current date in yyyy/MM/dd hh:mm:ss format
            %F File where the logging event occurred
            %H Hostname (if Sys::Hostname is available)
            %l Fully qualified name of the calling method followed by the
               callers source the file name and line number between
               parentheses.
            %L Line number within the file where the log statement was issued
            %m The message to be logged
            %m{chomp} The message to be logged, stripped off a trailing newline
            %M Method or function where the logging request was issued
            %n Newline (OS-independent)
            %p Priority of the logging event
            %P pid of the current process
            %r Number of milliseconds elapsed from program start to logging
               event
            %R Number of milliseconds elapsed from last logging event to
               current logging event
            %T A stack trace of functions called
            %x The topmost NDC (see below)
            %X{key} The entry 'key' of the MDC (see below)
            %% A literal percent (%) sign

        NDC and MDC are explained in "Nested Diagnostic Context (NDC)" and "Mapped Diagnostic
        Context (MDC)".

        Also, %d can be fine-tuned to display only certain characteristics of a date, according to
        the SimpleDateFormat in the Java World
        (<http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/api/java/text/SimpleDateFormat.html>)

        In this way, %d{HH:mm} displays only hours and minutes of the current date, while %d{yy,
        EEEE} displays a two-digit year, followed by a spelled-out day (like "Wednesday").

        Similar options are available for shrinking the displayed category or limit file/path
        components, %F{1} only displays the source file *name* without any path components while %F
        logs the full path. %c{2} only logs the last two components of the current category,
        "Foo::Bar::Baz" becomes "Bar::Baz" and saves space.

        If those placeholders aren't enough, then you can define your own right in the config file
        like this:

            log4perl.PatternLayout.cspec.U = sub { return "UID $<" }

        See Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout for further details on customized specifiers.

        Please note that the subroutines you're defining in this way are going to be run in the
        "main" namespace, so be sure to fully qualify functions and variables if they're located in
        different packages.

        SECURITY NOTE: this feature means arbitrary perl code can be embedded in the config file. In
        the rare case where the people who have access to your config file are different from the
        people who write your code and shouldn't have execute rights, you might want to call

            Log::Log4perl::Config->allow_code(0);

        before you call init(). Alternatively you can supply a restricted set of Perl opcodes that
        can be embedded in the config file as described in "Restricting what Opcodes can be in a
        Perl Hook".

    All placeholders are quantifiable, just like in *printf*. Following this tradition, "%-20c" will
    reserve 20 chars for the category and left-justify it.

    For more details on logging and how to use the flexible and the simple format, check out the
    original "log4j" website under

    SimpleLayout <http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/apidocs/org/apache/log4j/SimpleLayout.html>
    and PatternLayout
    <http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/apidocs/org/apache/log4j/PatternLayout.html>

  Penalties
    Logging comes with a price tag. "Log::Log4perl" has been optimized to allow for maximum
    performance, both with logging enabled and disabled.

    But you need to be aware that there's a small hit every time your code encounters a log
    statement -- no matter if logging is enabled or not. "Log::Log4perl" has been designed to keep
    this so low that it will be unnoticeable to most applications.

    Here's a couple of tricks which help "Log::Log4perl" to avoid unnecessary delays:

    You can save serious time if you're logging something like

            # Expensive in non-debug mode!
        for (@super_long_array) {
            $logger->debug("Element: $_");
        }

    and @super_long_array is fairly big, so looping through it is pretty expensive. Only you, the
    programmer, knows that going through that "for" loop can be skipped entirely if the current
    logging level for the actual component is higher than "debug". In this case, use this instead:

            # Cheap in non-debug mode!
        if($logger->is_debug()) {
            for (@super_long_array) {
                $logger->debug("Element: $_");
            }
        }

    If you're afraid that generating the parameters to the logging function is fairly expensive, use
    closures:

            # Passed as subroutine ref
        use Data::Dumper;
        $logger->debug(sub { Dumper($data) } );

    This won't unravel $data via Dumper() unless it's actually needed because it's logged.

    Also, Log::Log4perl lets you specify arguments to logger functions in *message output filter
    syntax*:

        $logger->debug("Structure: ",
                       { filter => \&Dumper,
                         value  => $someref });

    In this way, shortly before Log::Log4perl sending the message out to any appenders, it will be
    searching all arguments for hash references and treat them in a special way:

    It will invoke the function given as a reference with the "filter" key
    ("Data::Dumper::Dumper()") and pass it the value that came with the key named "value" as an
    argument. The anonymous hash in the call above will be replaced by the return value of the
    filter function.

Categories
    Categories are also called "Loggers" in Log4perl, both refer to the same thing and these terms
    are used interchangeably. "Log::Log4perl" uses *categories* to determine if a log statement in a
    component should be executed or suppressed at the current logging level. Most of the time, these
    categories are just the classes the log statements are located in:

        package Candy::Twix;

        sub new {
            my $logger = Log::Log4perl->get_logger("Candy::Twix");
            $logger->debug("Creating a new Twix bar");
            bless {}, shift;
        }

        # ...

        package Candy::Snickers;

        sub new {
            my $logger = Log::Log4perl->get_logger("Candy.Snickers");
            $logger->debug("Creating a new Snickers bar");
            bless {}, shift;
        }

        # ...

        package main;
        Log::Log4perl->init("mylogdefs.conf");

            # => "LOG> Creating a new Snickers bar"
        my $first = Candy::Snickers->new();
            # => "LOG> Creating a new Twix bar"
        my $second = Candy::Twix->new();

    Note that you can separate your category hierarchy levels using either dots like in Java (.) or
    double-colons (::) like in Perl. Both notations are equivalent and are handled the same way
    internally.

    However, categories are just there to make use of inheritance: if you invoke a logger in a
    sub-category, it will bubble up the hierarchy and call the appropriate appenders. Internally,
    categories are not related to the class hierarchy of the program at all -- they're purely
    virtual. You can use arbitrary categories -- for example in the following program, which isn't
    oo-style, but procedural:

        sub print_portfolio {

            my $log = Log::Log4perl->get_logger("user.portfolio");
            $log->debug("Quotes requested: @_");

            for(@_) {
                print "$_: ", get_quote($_), "\n";
            }
        }

        sub get_quote {

            my $log = Log::Log4perl->get_logger("internet.quotesystem");
            $log->debug("Fetching quote: $_[0]");

            return yahoo_quote($_[0]);
        }

    The logger in first function, "print_portfolio", is assigned the (virtual) "user.portfolio"
    category. Depending on the "Log4perl" configuration, this will either call a "user.portfolio"
    appender, a "user" appender, or an appender assigned to root -- without "user.portfolio" having
    any relevance to the class system used in the program. The logger in the second function adheres
    to the "internet.quotesystem" category -- again, maybe because it's bundled with other Internet
    functions, but not because there would be a class of this name somewhere.

    However, be careful, don't go overboard: if you're developing a system in object-oriented style,
    using the class hierarchy is usually your best choice. Think about the people taking over your
    code one day: The class hierarchy is probably what they know right up front, so it's easy for
    them to tune the logging to their needs.

  Turn off a component
    "Log4perl" doesn't only allow you to selectively switch *on* a category of log messages, you can
    also use the mechanism to selectively *disable* logging in certain components whereas logging is
    kept turned on in higher-level categories. This mechanism comes in handy if you find that while
    bumping up the logging level of a high-level (i. e. close to root) category, that one component
    logs more than it should,

    Here's how it works:

        ############################################################
        # Turn off logging in a lower-level category while keeping
        # it active in higher-level categories.
        ############################################################
        log4perl.rootLogger=DEBUG, LOGFILE
        log4perl.logger.deep.down.the.hierarchy = ERROR, LOGFILE

        # ... Define appenders ...

    This way, log messages issued from within "Deep::Down::The::Hierarchy" and below will be logged
    only if they're "ERROR" or worse, while in all other system components even "DEBUG" messages
    will be logged.

  Return Values
    All logging methods return values indicating if their message actually reached one or more
    appenders. If the message has been suppressed because of level constraints, "undef" is returned.

    For example,

        my $ret = $logger->info("Message");

    will return "undef" if the system debug level for the current category is not "INFO" or more
    permissive. If Log::Log4perl forwarded the message to one or more appenders, the number of
    appenders is returned.

    If appenders decide to veto on the message with an appender threshold, the log method's return
    value will have them excluded. This means that if you've got one appender holding an appender
    threshold and you're logging a message which passes the system's log level hurdle but not the
    appender threshold, 0 will be returned by the log function.

    The bottom line is: Logging functions will return a *true* value if the message made it through
    to one or more appenders and a *false* value if it didn't. This allows for constructs like

        $logger->fatal("@_") or print STDERR "@_\n";

    which will ensure that the fatal message isn't lost if the current level is lower than FATAL or
    printed twice if the level is acceptable but an appender already points to STDERR.

  Pitfalls with Categories
    Be careful with just blindly reusing the system's packages as categories. If you do, you'll get
    into trouble with inherited methods. Imagine the following class setup:

        use Log::Log4perl;

        ###########################################
        package Bar;
        ###########################################
        sub new {
            my($class) = @_;
            my $logger = Log::Log4perl::get_logger(__PACKAGE__);
            $logger->debug("Creating instance");
            bless {}, $class;
        }
        ###########################################
        package Bar::Twix;
        ###########################################
        our @ISA = qw(Bar);

        ###########################################
        package main;
        ###########################################
        Log::Log4perl->init(\ qq{
        log4perl.category.Bar.Twix = DEBUG, Screen
        log4perl.appender.Screen = Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen
        log4perl.appender.Screen.layout = SimpleLayout
        });

        my $bar = Bar::Twix->new();

    "Bar::Twix" just inherits everything from "Bar", including the constructor "new()". Contrary to
    what you might be thinking at first, this won't log anything. Reason for this is the
    "get_logger()" call in package "Bar", which will always get a logger of the "Bar" category, even
    if we call "new()" via the "Bar::Twix" package, which will make perl go up the inheritance tree
    to actually execute "Bar::new()". Since we've only defined logging behaviour for "Bar::Twix" in
    the configuration file, nothing will happen.

    This can be fixed by changing the "get_logger()" method in "Bar::new()" to obtain a logger of
    the category matching the *actual* class of the object, like in

            # ... in Bar::new() ...
        my $logger = Log::Log4perl::get_logger( $class );

    In a method other than the constructor, the class name of the actual object can be obtained by
    calling "ref()" on the object reference, so

        package BaseClass;
        use Log::Log4perl qw( get_logger );

        sub new {
            bless {}, shift;
        }

        sub method {
            my( $self ) = @_;

            get_logger( ref $self )->debug( "message" );
        }

        package SubClass;
        our @ISA = qw(BaseClass);

    is the recommended pattern to make sure that

        my $sub = SubClass->new();
        $sub->meth();

    starts logging if the "SubClass" category (and not the "BaseClass" category has logging enabled
    at the DEBUG level.

  Initialize once and only once
    It's important to realize that Log::Log4perl gets initialized once and only once, typically at
    the start of a program or system. Calling "init()" more than once will cause it to clobber the
    existing configuration and *replace* it by the new one.

    If you're in a traditional CGI environment, where every request is handled by a new process,
    calling "init()" every time is fine. In persistent environments like "mod_perl", however,
    Log::Log4perl should be initialized either at system startup time (Apache offers startup
    handlers for that) or via

            # Init or skip if already done
        Log::Log4perl->init_once($conf_file);

    "init_once()" is identical to "init()", just with the exception that it will leave a potentially
    existing configuration alone and will only call "init()" if Log::Log4perl hasn't been
    initialized yet.

    If you're just curious if Log::Log4perl has been initialized yet, the check

        if(Log::Log4perl->initialized()) {
            # Yes, Log::Log4perl has already been initialized
        } else {
            # No, not initialized yet ...
        }

    can be used.

    If you're afraid that the components of your system are stepping on each other's toes or if you
    are thinking that different components should initialize Log::Log4perl separately, try to
    consolidate your system to use a centralized Log4perl configuration file and use Log4perl's
    *categories* to separate your components.

  Custom Filters
    Log4perl allows the use of customized filters in its appenders to control the output of
    messages. These filters might grep for certain text chunks in a message, verify that its
    priority matches or exceeds a certain level or that this is the 10th time the same message has
    been submitted -- and come to a log/no log decision based upon these circumstantial facts.

    Check out Log::Log4perl::Filter for detailed instructions on how to use them.

  Performance
    The performance of Log::Log4perl calls obviously depends on a lot of things. But to give you a
    general idea, here's some rough numbers:

    On a Pentium 4 Linux box at 2.4 GHz, you'll get through

    *   500,000 suppressed log statements per second

    *   30,000 logged messages per second (using an in-memory appender)

    *   init_and_watch delay mode: 300,000 suppressed, 30,000 logged. init_and_watch signal mode:
        450,000 suppressed, 30,000 logged.

    Numbers depend on the complexity of the Log::Log4perl configuration. For a more detailed
    benchmark test, check the "docs/benchmark.results.txt" document in the Log::Log4perl
    distribution.

Cool Tricks
    Here's a collection of useful tricks for the advanced "Log::Log4perl" user. For more, check the
    FAQ, either in the distribution (Log::Log4perl::FAQ) or on <http://log4perl.sourceforge.net>.

  Shortcuts
    When getting an instance of a logger, instead of saying

        use Log::Log4perl;
        my $logger = Log::Log4perl->get_logger();

    it's often more convenient to import the "get_logger" method from "Log::Log4perl" into the
    current namespace:

        use Log::Log4perl qw(get_logger);
        my $logger = get_logger();

    Please note this difference: To obtain the root logger, please use "get_logger("")", call it
    without parameters ("get_logger()"), you'll get the logger of a category named after the current
    package. "get_logger()" is equivalent to "get_logger(__PACKAGE__)".

  Alternative initialization
    Instead of having "init()" read in a configuration file by specifying a file name or passing it
    a reference to an open filehandle ("Log::Log4perl->init( \*FILE )"), you can also pass in a
    reference to a string, containing the content of the file:

        Log::Log4perl->init( \$config_text );

    Also, if you've got the "name=value" pairs of the configuration in a hash, you can just as well
    initialize "Log::Log4perl" with a reference to it:

        my %key_value_pairs = (
            "log4perl.rootLogger"       => "ERROR, LOGFILE",
            "log4perl.appender.LOGFILE" => "Log::Log4perl::Appender::File",
            ...
        );

        Log::Log4perl->init( \%key_value_pairs );

    Or also you can use a URL, see below:

  Using LWP to parse URLs
    (This section borrowed from XML::DOM::Parser by T.J. Mather).

    The init() function now also supports URLs, e.g. *http://www.erols.com/enno/xsa.xml*. It uses
    LWP to download the file and then calls parse() on the resulting string. By default it will use
    a LWP::UserAgent that is created as follows:

     use LWP::UserAgent;
     $LWP_USER_AGENT = LWP::UserAgent->new;
     $LWP_USER_AGENT->env_proxy;

    Note that env_proxy reads proxy settings from environment variables, which is what Log4perl
    needs to do to get through our firewall. If you want to use a different LWP::UserAgent, you can
    set it with

        Log::Log4perl::Config::set_LWP_UserAgent($my_agent);

    Currently, LWP is used when the filename (passed to parsefile) starts with one of the following
    URL schemes: http, https, ftp, wais, gopher, or file (followed by a colon.)

    Don't use this feature with init_and_watch().

  Automatic reloading of changed configuration files
    Instead of just statically initializing Log::Log4perl via

        Log::Log4perl->init($conf_file);

    there's a way to have Log::Log4perl periodically check for changes in the configuration and
    reload it if necessary:

        Log::Log4perl->init_and_watch($conf_file, $delay);

    In this mode, Log::Log4perl will examine the configuration file $conf_file every $delay seconds
    for changes via the file's last modification timestamp. If the file has been updated, it will be
    reloaded and replace the current Log::Log4perl configuration.

    The way this works is that with every logger function called (debug(), is_debug(), etc.),
    Log::Log4perl will check if the delay interval has expired. If so, it will run a -M file check
    on the configuration file. If its timestamp has been modified, the current configuration will be
    dumped and new content of the file will be loaded.

    This convenience comes at a price, though: Calling time() with every logging function call,
    especially the ones that are "suppressed" (!), will slow down these Log4perl calls by about 40%.

    To alleviate this performance hit a bit, "init_and_watch()" can be configured to listen for a
    Unix signal to reload the configuration instead:

        Log::Log4perl->init_and_watch($conf_file, 'HUP');

    This will set up a signal handler for SIGHUP and reload the configuration if the application
    receives this signal, e.g. via the "kill" command:

        kill -HUP pid

    where "pid" is the process ID of the application. This will bring you back to about 85% of
    Log::Log4perl's normal execution speed for suppressed statements. For details, check out
    "Performance". For more info on the signal handler, look for "SIGNAL MODE" in
    Log::Log4perl::Config::Watch.

    If you have a somewhat long delay set between physical config file checks or don't want to use
    the signal associated with the config file watcher, you can trigger a configuration reload at
    the next possible time by calling "Log::Log4perl::Config->watcher->force_next_check()".

    One thing to watch out for: If the configuration file contains a syntax or other fatal error, a
    running application will stop with "die" if this damaged configuration will be loaded during
    runtime, triggered either by a signal or if the delay period expired and the change is detected.
    This behaviour might change in the future.

    To allow the application to intercept and control a configuration reload in init_and_watch mode,
    a callback can be specified:

        Log::Log4perl->init_and_watch($conf_file, 10, {
                preinit_callback => \&callback });

    If Log4perl determines that the configuration needs to be reloaded, it will call the
    "preinit_callback" function without parameters. If the callback returns a true value, Log4perl
    will proceed and reload the configuration. If the callback returns a false value, Log4perl will
    keep the old configuration and skip reloading it until the next time around. Inside the
    callback, an application can run all kinds of checks, including accessing the configuration
    file, which is available via "Log::Log4perl::Config->watcher()->file()".

  Variable Substitution
    To avoid having to retype the same expressions over and over again, Log::Log4perl's
    configuration files support simple variable substitution. New variables are defined simply by
    adding

        varname = value

    lines to the configuration file before using

        ${varname}

    afterwards to recall the assigned values. Here's an example:

        layout_class   = Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout
        layout_pattern = %d %F{1} %L> %m %n

        log4perl.category.Bar.Twix = WARN, Logfile, Screen

        log4perl.appender.Logfile  = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.filename = test.log
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout = ${layout_class}
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout.ConversionPattern = ${layout_pattern}

        log4perl.appender.Screen  = Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen
        log4perl.appender.Screen.layout = ${layout_class}
        log4perl.appender.Screen.layout.ConversionPattern = ${layout_pattern}

    This is a convenient way to define two appenders with the same layout without having to retype
    the pattern definitions.

    Variable substitution via "${varname}" will first try to find an explicitly defined variable. If
    that fails, it will check your shell's environment for a variable of that name. If that also
    fails, the program will "die()".

  Perl Hooks in the Configuration File
    If some of the values used in the Log4perl configuration file need to be dynamically modified by
    the program, use Perl hooks:

        log4perl.appender.File.filename = \
            sub { return getLogfileName(); }

    Each value starting with the string "sub {..." is interpreted as Perl code to be executed at the
    time the application parses the configuration via "Log::Log4perl::init()". The return value of
    the subroutine is used by Log::Log4perl as the configuration value.

    The Perl code is executed in the "main" package, functions in other packages have to be called
    in fully-qualified notation.

    Here's another example, utilizing an environment variable as a username for a DBI appender:

        log4perl.appender.DB.username = \
            sub { $ENV{DB_USER_NAME } }

    However, please note the difference between these code snippets and those used for user-defined
    conversion specifiers as discussed in Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout: While the snippets
    above are run *once* when "Log::Log4perl::init()" is called, the conversion specifier snippets
    are executed *each time* a message is rendered according to the PatternLayout.

    SECURITY NOTE: this feature means arbitrary perl code can be embedded in the config file. In the
    rare case where the people who have access to your config file are different from the people who
    write your code and shouldn't have execute rights, you might want to set

        Log::Log4perl::Config->allow_code(0);

    before you call init(). Alternatively you can supply a restricted set of Perl opcodes that can
    be embedded in the config file as described in "Restricting what Opcodes can be in a Perl Hook".

  Restricting what Opcodes can be in a Perl Hook
    The value you pass to Log::Log4perl::Config->allow_code() determines whether the code that is
    embedded in the config file is eval'd unrestricted, or eval'd in a Safe compartment. By default,
    a value of '1' is assumed, which does a normal 'eval' without any restrictions. A value of '0'
    however prevents any embedded code from being evaluated.

    If you would like fine-grained control over what can and cannot be included in embedded code,
    then please utilize the following methods:

     Log::Log4perl::Config->allow_code( $allow );
     Log::Log4perl::Config->allowed_code_ops($op1, $op2, ... );
     Log::Log4perl::Config->vars_shared_with_safe_compartment( [ \%vars | $package, \@vars ] );
     Log::Log4perl::Config->allowed_code_ops_convenience_map( [ \%map | $name, \@mask ] );

    Log::Log4perl::Config->allowed_code_ops() takes a list of opcode masks that are allowed to run
    in the compartment. The opcode masks must be specified as described in Opcode:

     Log::Log4perl::Config->allowed_code_ops(':subprocess');

    This example would allow Perl operations like backticks, system, fork, and waitpid to be
    executed in the compartment. Of course, you probably don't want to use this mask -- it would
    allow exactly what the Safe compartment is designed to prevent.

    Log::Log4perl::Config->vars_shared_with_safe_compartment() takes the symbols which should be
    exported into the Safe compartment before the code is evaluated. The keys of this hash are the
    package names that the symbols are in, and the values are array references to the literal symbol
    names. For convenience, the default settings export the '%ENV' hash from the 'main' package into
    the compartment:

     Log::Log4perl::Config->vars_shared_with_safe_compartment(
       main => [ '%ENV' ],
     );

    Log::Log4perl::Config->allowed_code_ops_convenience_map() is an accessor method to a map of
    convenience names to opcode masks. At present, the following convenience names are defined:

     safe        = [ ':browse' ]
     restrictive = [ ':default' ]

    For convenience, if Log::Log4perl::Config->allow_code() is called with a value which is a key of
    the map previously defined with Log::Log4perl::Config->allowed_code_ops_convenience_map(), then
    the allowed opcodes are set according to the value defined in the map. If this is confusing,
    consider the following:

     use Log::Log4perl;

     my $config = <<'END';
      log4perl.logger = INFO, Main
      log4perl.appender.Main = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
      log4perl.appender.Main.filename = \
          sub { "example" . getpwuid($<) . ".log" }
      log4perl.appender.Main.layout = Log::Log4perl::Layout::SimpleLayout
     END

     $Log::Log4perl::Config->allow_code('restrictive');
     Log::Log4perl->init( \$config );       # will fail
     $Log::Log4perl::Config->allow_code('safe');
     Log::Log4perl->init( \$config );       # will succeed

    The reason that the first call to ->init() fails is because the 'restrictive' name maps to an
    opcode mask of ':default'. getpwuid() is not part of ':default', so ->init() fails. The 'safe'
    name maps to an opcode mask of ':browse', which allows getpwuid() to run, so ->init() succeeds.

    allowed_code_ops_convenience_map() can be invoked in several ways:

    allowed_code_ops_convenience_map()
        Returns the entire convenience name map as a hash reference in scalar context or a hash in
        list context.

    allowed_code_ops_convenience_map( \%map )
        Replaces the entire convenience name map with the supplied hash reference.

    allowed_code_ops_convenience_map( $name )
        Returns the opcode mask for the given convenience name, or undef if no such name is defined
        in the map.

    allowed_code_ops_convenience_map( $name, \@mask )
        Adds the given name/mask pair to the convenience name map. If the name already exists in the
        map, it's value is replaced with the new mask.

    as can vars_shared_with_safe_compartment():

    vars_shared_with_safe_compartment()
        Return the entire map of packages to variables as a hash reference in scalar context or a
        hash in list context.

    vars_shared_with_safe_compartment( \%packages )
        Replaces the entire map of packages to variables with the supplied hash reference.

    vars_shared_with_safe_compartment( $package )
        Returns the arrayref of variables to be shared for a specific package.

    vars_shared_with_safe_compartment( $package, \@vars )
        Adds the given package / varlist pair to the map. If the package already exists in the map,
        it's value is replaced with the new arrayref of variable names.

    For more information on opcodes and Safe Compartments, see Opcode and Safe.

  Changing the Log Level on a Logger
    Log4perl provides some internal functions for quickly adjusting the log level from within a
    running Perl program.

    Now, some people might argue that you should adjust your levels from within an external Log4perl
    configuration file, but Log4perl is everybody's darling.

    Typically run-time adjusting of levels is done at the beginning, or in response to some external
    input (like a "more logging" runtime command for diagnostics).

    You get the log level from a logger object with:

        $current_level = $logger->level();

    and you may set it with the same method, provided you first imported the log level constants,
    with:

        use Log::Log4perl::Level;

    Then you can set the level on a logger to one of the constants,

        $logger->level($ERROR); # one of DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL

    To increase the level of logging currently being done, use:

        $logger->more_logging($delta);

    and to decrease it, use:

        $logger->less_logging($delta);

    $delta must be a positive integer (for now, we may fix this later ;).

    There are also two equivalent functions:

        $logger->inc_level($delta);
        $logger->dec_level($delta);

    They're included to allow you a choice in readability. Some folks will prefer more/less_logging,
    as they're fairly clear in what they do, and allow the programmer not to worry too much about
    what a Level is and whether a higher level means more or less logging. However, other folks who
    do understand and have lots of code that deals with levels will probably prefer the inc_level()
    and dec_level() methods as they want to work with Levels and not worry about whether that means
    more or less logging. :)

    That diatribe aside, typically you'll use more_logging() or inc_level() as such:

        my $v = 0; # default level of verbosity.

        GetOptions("v+" => \$v, ...);

        if( $v ) {
          $logger->more_logging($v); # inc logging level once for each -v in ARGV
        }

  Custom Log Levels
    First off, let me tell you that creating custom levels is heavily deprecated by the log4j folks.
    Indeed, instead of creating additional levels on top of the predefined DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR
    and FATAL, you should use categories to control the amount of logging smartly, based on the
    location of the log-active code in the system.

    Nevertheless, Log4perl provides a nice way to create custom levels via the create_custom_level()
    routine function. However, this must be done before the first call to init() or get_logger().
    Say you want to create a NOTIFY logging level that comes after WARN (and thus before INFO).
    You'd do such as follows:

        use Log::Log4perl;
        use Log::Log4perl::Level;

        Log::Log4perl::Logger::create_custom_level("NOTIFY", "WARN");

    And that's it! "create_custom_level()" creates the following functions / variables for level
    FOO:

        $FOO_INT        # integer to use in L4p::Level::to_level()
        $logger->foo()  # log function to log if level = FOO
        $logger->is_foo()   # true if current level is >= FOO

    These levels can also be used in your config file, but note that your config file probably won't
    be portable to another log4perl or log4j environment unless you've made the appropriate mods
    there too.

    Since Log4perl translates log levels to syslog and Log::Dispatch if their appenders are used,
    you may add mappings for custom levels as well:

      Log::Log4perl::Level::add_priority("NOTIFY", "WARN",
                                         $syslog_equiv, $log_dispatch_level);

    For example, if your new custom "NOTIFY" level is supposed to map to syslog level 2
    ("LOG_NOTICE") and Log::Dispatch level 2 ("notice"), use:

      Log::Log4perl::Logger::create_custom_level("NOTIFY", "WARN", 2, 2);

  System-wide log levels
    As a fairly drastic measure to decrease (or increase) the logging level all over the system with
    one single configuration option, use the "threshold" keyword in the Log4perl configuration file:

        log4perl.threshold = ERROR

    sets the system-wide (or hierarchy-wide according to the log4j documentation) to ERROR and
    therefore deprives every logger in the system of the right to log lower-prio messages.

  Easy Mode
    For teaching purposes (especially for [1]), I've put ":easy" mode into "Log::Log4perl", which
    just initializes a single root logger with a defined priority and a screen appender including
    some nice standard layout:

        ### Initialization Section
        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
        Log::Log4perl->easy_init($ERROR);  # Set priority of root logger to ERROR

        ### Application Section
        my $logger = get_logger();
        $logger->fatal("This will get logged.");
        $logger->debug("This won't.");

    This will dump something like

        2002/08/04 11:43:09 ERROR> script.pl:16 main::function - This will get logged.

    to the screen. While this has been proven to work well familiarizing people with "Log::Logperl"
    slowly, effectively avoiding to clobber them over the head with a plethora of different knobs to
    fiddle with (categories, appenders, levels, layout), the overall mission of "Log::Log4perl" is
    to let people use categories right from the start to get used to the concept. So, let's keep
    this one fairly hidden in the man page (congrats on reading this far :).

  Stealth loggers
    Sometimes, people are lazy. If you're whipping up a 50-line script and want the comfort of
    Log::Log4perl without having the burden of carrying a separate log4perl.conf file or a 5-liner
    defining that you want to append your log statements to a file, you can use the following
    features:

        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);

        Log::Log4perl->easy_init( { level   => $DEBUG,
                                    file    => ">>test.log" } );

            # Logs to test.log via stealth logger
        DEBUG("Debug this!");
        INFO("Info this!");
        WARN("Warn this!");
        ERROR("Error this!");

        some_function();

        sub some_function {
                # Same here
            FATAL("Fatal this!");
        }

    In ":easy" mode, "Log::Log4perl" will instantiate a *stealth logger* and introduce the
    convenience functions "TRACE", "DEBUG()", "INFO()", "WARN()", "ERROR()", "FATAL()", and "ALWAYS"
    into the package namespace. These functions simply take messages as arguments and forward them
    to the stealth loggers methods ("debug()", "info()", and so on).

    If a message should never be blocked, regardless of the log level, use the "ALWAYS" function
    which corresponds to a log level of "OFF":

        ALWAYS "This will be printed regardless of the log level";

    The "easy_init" method can be called with a single level value to create a STDERR appender and a
    root logger as in

        Log::Log4perl->easy_init($DEBUG);

    or, as shown below (and in the example above) with a reference to a hash, specifying values for
    "level" (the logger's priority), "file" (the appender's data sink), "category" (the logger's
    category and "layout" for the appender's pattern layout specification. All key-value pairs are
    optional, they default to $DEBUG for "level", "STDERR" for "file", "" (root category) for
    "category" and "%d %m%n" for "layout":

        Log::Log4perl->easy_init( { level    => $DEBUG,
                                    file     => ">test.log",
                                    utf8     => 1,
                                    category => "Bar::Twix",
                                    layout   => '%F{1}-%L-%M: %m%n' } );

    The "file" parameter takes file names preceded by ">" (overwrite) and ">>" (append) as
    arguments. This will cause "Log::Log4perl::Appender::File" appenders to be created behind the
    scenes. Also the keywords "STDOUT" and "STDERR" (no ">" or ">>") are recognized, which will
    utilize and configure "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen" appropriately. The "utf8" flag, if set
    to a true value, runs a "binmode" command on the file handle to establish a utf8 line discipline
    on the file, otherwise you'll get a 'wide character in print' warning message and probably not
    what you'd expect as output.

    The stealth loggers can be used in different packages, you just need to make sure you're calling
    the "use" function in every package you're using "Log::Log4perl"'s easy services:

        package Bar::Twix;
        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
        sub eat { DEBUG("Twix mjam"); }

        package Bar::Mars;
        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
        sub eat { INFO("Mars mjam"); }

        package main;

        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);

        Log::Log4perl->easy_init( { level    => $DEBUG,
                                    file     => ">>test.log",
                                    category => "Bar::Twix",
                                    layout   => '%F{1}-%L-%M: %m%n' },
                                  { level    => $DEBUG,
                                    file     => "STDOUT",
                                    category => "Bar::Mars",
                                    layout   => '%m%n' },
                                );
        Bar::Twix::eat();
        Bar::Mars::eat();

    As shown above, "easy_init()" will take any number of different logger definitions as hash
    references.

    Also, stealth loggers feature the functions "LOGWARN()", "LOGDIE()", and "LOGEXIT()", combining
    a logging request with a subsequent Perl warn() or die() or exit() statement. So, for example

        if($all_is_lost) {
            LOGDIE("Terrible Problem");
        }

    will log the message if the package's logger is at least "FATAL" but "die()" (including the
    traditional output to STDERR) in any case afterwards.

    See "Log and die or warn" for the similar "logdie()" and "logwarn()" functions of regular (i.e
    non-stealth) loggers.

    Similarly, "LOGCARP()", "LOGCLUCK()", "LOGCROAK()", and "LOGCONFESS()" are provided in ":easy"
    mode, facilitating the use of "logcarp()", "logcluck()", "logcroak()", and "logconfess()" with
    stealth loggers.

    When using Log::Log4perl in easy mode, please make sure you understand the implications of
    "Pitfalls with Categories".

    By the way, these convenience functions perform exactly as fast as the standard Log::Log4perl
    logger methods, there's *no* performance penalty whatsoever.

  Nested Diagnostic Context (NDC)
    If you find that your application could use a global (thread-specific) data stack which your
    loggers throughout the system have easy access to, use Nested Diagnostic Contexts (NDCs). Also
    check out "Mapped Diagnostic Context (MDC)", this might turn out to be even more useful.

    For example, when handling a request of a web client, it's probably useful to have the user's IP
    address available in all log statements within code dealing with this particular request.
    Instead of passing this piece of data around between your application functions, you can just
    use the global (but thread-specific) NDC mechanism. It allows you to push data pieces (scalars
    usually) onto its stack via

        Log::Log4perl::NDC->push("San");
        Log::Log4perl::NDC->push("Francisco");

    and have your loggers retrieve them again via the "%x" placeholder in the PatternLayout. With
    the stack values above and a PatternLayout format like "%x %m%n", the call

        $logger->debug("rocks");

    will end up as

        San Francisco rocks

    in the log appender.

    The stack mechanism allows for nested structures. Just make sure that at the end of the request,
    you either decrease the stack one by one by calling

        Log::Log4perl::NDC->pop();
        Log::Log4perl::NDC->pop();

    or clear out the entire NDC stack by calling

        Log::Log4perl::NDC->remove();

    Even if you should forget to do that, "Log::Log4perl" won't grow the stack indefinitely, but
    limit it to a maximum, defined in "Log::Log4perl::NDC" (currently 5). A call to "push()" on a
    full stack will just replace the topmost element by the new value.

    Again, the stack is always available via the "%x" placeholder in the
    Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout class whenever a logger fires. It will replace "%x" by the
    blank-separated list of the values on the stack. It does that by just calling

        Log::Log4perl::NDC->get();

    internally. See details on how this standard log4j feature is implemented in Log::Log4perl::NDC.

  Mapped Diagnostic Context (MDC)
    Just like the previously discussed NDC stores thread-specific information in a stack structure,
    the MDC implements a hash table to store key/value pairs in.

    The static method

        Log::Log4perl::MDC->put($key, $value);

    stores $value under a key $key, with which it can be retrieved later (possibly in a totally
    different part of the system) by calling the "get" method:

        my $value = Log::Log4perl::MDC->get($key);

    If no value has been stored previously under $key, the "get" method will return "undef".

    Typically, MDC values are retrieved later on via the "%X{...}" placeholder in
    "Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout". If the "get()" method returns "undef", the placeholder
    will expand to the string "[undef]".

    An application taking a web request might store the remote host like

        Log::Log4perl::MDC->put("remote_host", $r->headers("HOST"));

    at its beginning and if the appender's layout looks something like

        log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout.ConversionPattern = %X{remote_host}: %m%n

    then a log statement like

       DEBUG("Content delivered");

    will log something like

       adsl-63.dsl.snf.pacbell.net: Content delivered

    later on in the program.

    For details, please check Log::Log4perl::MDC.

  Resurrecting hidden Log4perl Statements
    Sometimes scripts need to be deployed in environments without having Log::Log4perl installed
    yet. On the other hand, you don't want to live without your Log4perl statements -- they're gonna
    come in handy later.

    So, just deploy your script with Log4perl statements commented out with the pattern "###l4p",
    like in

        ###l4p DEBUG "It works!";
        # ...
        ###l4p INFO "Really!";

    If Log::Log4perl is available, use the ":resurrect" tag to have Log4perl resurrect those buried
    statements before the script starts running:

        use Log::Log4perl qw(:resurrect :easy);

        ###l4p Log::Log4perl->easy_init($DEBUG);
        ###l4p DEBUG "It works!";
        # ...
        ###l4p INFO "Really!";

    This will have a source filter kick in and indeed print

        2004/11/18 22:08:46 It works!
        2004/11/18 22:08:46 Really!

    In environments lacking Log::Log4perl, just comment out the first line and the script will run
    nevertheless (but of course without logging):

        # use Log::Log4perl qw(:resurrect :easy);

        ###l4p Log::Log4perl->easy_init($DEBUG);
        ###l4p DEBUG "It works!";
        # ...
        ###l4p INFO "Really!";

    because everything's a regular comment now. Alternatively, put the magic Log::Log4perl comment
    resurrection line into your shell's PERL5OPT environment variable, e.g. for bash:

        set PERL5OPT=-MLog::Log4perl=:resurrect,:easy
        export PERL5OPT

    This will awaken the giant within an otherwise silent script like the following:

        #!/usr/bin/perl

        ###l4p Log::Log4perl->easy_init($DEBUG);
        ###l4p DEBUG "It works!";

    As of "Log::Log4perl" 1.12, you can even force *all* modules loaded by a script to have their
    hidden Log4perl statements resurrected. For this to happen, load "Log::Log4perl::Resurrector"
    *before* loading any modules:

        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
        use Log::Log4perl::Resurrector;

        use Foobar; # All hidden Log4perl statements in here will
                    # be uncommented before Foobar gets loaded.

        Log::Log4perl->easy_init($DEBUG);
        ...

    Check the "Log::Log4perl::Resurrector" manpage for more details.

  Access defined appenders
    All appenders defined in the configuration file or via Perl code can be retrieved by the
    "appender_by_name()" class method. This comes in handy if you want to manipulate or query
    appender properties after the Log4perl configuration has been loaded via "init()".

    Note that internally, Log::Log4perl uses the "Log::Log4perl::Appender" wrapper class to control
    the real appenders (like "Log::Log4perl::Appender::File" or "Log::Dispatch::FileRotate"). The
    "Log::Log4perl::Appender" class has an "appender" attribute, pointing to the real appender.

    The reason for this is that external appenders like "Log::Dispatch::FileRotate" don't support
    all of Log::Log4perl's appender control mechanisms (like appender thresholds).

    The previously mentioned method "appender_by_name()" returns a reference to the *real* appender
    object. If you want access to the wrapper class (e.g. if you want to modify the appender's
    threshold), use the hash $Log::Log4perl::Logger::APPENDER_BY_NAME{...} instead, which holds
    references to all appender wrapper objects.

  Modify appender thresholds
    To set an appender's threshold, use its "threshold()" method:

        $app->threshold( $FATAL );

    To conveniently adjust *all* appender thresholds (e.g. because a script uses more_logging()),
    use

           # decrease thresholds of all appenders
        Log::Log4perl->appender_thresholds_adjust(-1);

    This will decrease the thresholds of all appenders in the system by one level, i.e. WARN becomes
    INFO, INFO becomes DEBUG, etc. To only modify selected ones, use

           # decrease thresholds of selected appenders
        Log::Log4perl->appender_thresholds_adjust(-1, ['AppName1', ...]);

    and pass the names of affected appenders in a ref to an array.

Advanced configuration within Perl
    Initializing Log::Log4perl can certainly also be done from within Perl. At last, this is what
    "Log::Log4perl::Config" does behind the scenes. Log::Log4perl's configuration file parsers are
    using a publically available API to set up Log::Log4perl's categories, appenders and layouts.

    Here's an example on how to configure two appenders with the same layout in Perl, without using
    a configuration file at all:

      ########################
      # Initialization section
      ########################
      use Log::Log4perl;
      use Log::Log4perl::Layout;
      use Log::Log4perl::Level;

         # Define a category logger
      my $log = Log::Log4perl->get_logger("Foo::Bar");

         # Define a layout
      my $layout = Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout->new("[%r] %F %L %m%n");

         # Define a file appender
      my $file_appender = Log::Log4perl::Appender->new(
                              "Log::Log4perl::Appender::File",
                              name      => "filelog",
                              filename  => "/tmp/my.log");

         # Define a stdout appender
      my $stdout_appender =  Log::Log4perl::Appender->new(
                              "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen",
                              name      => "screenlog",
                              stderr    => 0);

         # Have both appenders use the same layout (could be different)
      $stdout_appender->layout($layout);
      $file_appender->layout($layout);

      $log->add_appender($stdout_appender);
      $log->add_appender($file_appender);
      $log->level($INFO);

    Please note the class of the appender object is passed as a *string* to
    "Log::Log4perl::Appender" in the *first* argument. Behind the scenes, "Log::Log4perl::Appender"
    will create the necessary "Log::Log4perl::Appender::*" (or "Log::Dispatch::*") object and pass
    along the name value pairs we provided to "Log::Log4perl::Appender->new()" after the first
    argument.

    The "name" value is optional and if you don't provide one, "Log::Log4perl::Appender->new()" will
    create a unique one for you. The names and values of additional parameters are dependent on the
    requirements of the particular appender class and can be looked up in their manual pages.

    A side note: In case you're wondering if "Log::Log4perl::Appender->new()" will also take care of
    the "min_level" argument to the "Log::Dispatch::*" constructors called behind the scenes -- yes,
    it does. This is because we want the "Log::Dispatch" objects to blindly log everything we send
    them ("debug" is their lowest setting) because *we* in "Log::Log4perl" want to call the shots
    and decide on when and what to log.

    The call to the appender's *layout()* method specifies the format (as a previously created
    "Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout" object) in which the message is being logged in the
    specified appender. If you don't specify a layout, the logger will fall back to
    "Log::Log4perl::SimpleLayout", which logs the debug level, a hyphen (-) and the log message.

    Layouts are objects, here's how you create them:

            # Create a simple layout
        my $simple = Log::Log4perl::SimpleLayout();

            # create a flexible layout:
            # ("yyyy/MM/dd hh:mm:ss (file:lineno)> message\n")
        my $pattern = Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout("%d (%F:%L)> %m%n");

    Every appender has exactly one layout assigned to it. You assign the layout to the appender
    using the appender's "layout()" object:

        my $app =  Log::Log4perl::Appender->new(
                      "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Screen",
                      name      => "screenlog",
                      stderr    => 0);

            # Assign the previously defined flexible layout
        $app->layout($pattern);

            # Add the appender to a previously defined logger
        $logger->add_appender($app);

            # ... and you're good to go!
        $logger->debug("Blah");
            # => "2002/07/10 23:55:35 (test.pl:207)> Blah\n"

    It's also possible to remove appenders from a logger:

        $logger->remove_appender($appender_name);

    will remove an appender, specified by name, from a given logger. Please note that this does
    *not* remove an appender from the system.

    To eradicate an appender from the system, you need to call
    "Log::Log4perl->eradicate_appender($appender_name)" which will first remove the appender from
    every logger in the system and then will delete all references Log4perl holds to it.

    To remove a logger from the system, use "Log::Log4perl->remove_logger($logger)". After the
    remaining reference $logger goes away, the logger will self-destruct. If the logger in question
    is a stealth logger, all of its convenience shortcuts (DEBUG, INFO, etc) will turn into no-ops.

How about Log::Dispatch::Config?
    Tatsuhiko Miyagawa's "Log::Dispatch::Config" is a very clever simplified logger implementation,
    covering some of the *log4j* functionality. Among the things that "Log::Log4perl" can but
    "Log::Dispatch::Config" can't are:

    *   You can't assign categories to loggers. For small systems that's fine, but if you can't turn
        off and on detailed logging in only a tiny subsystem of your environment, you're missing out
        on a majorly useful log4j feature.

    *   Defining appender thresholds. Important if you want to solve problems like "log all messages
        of level FATAL to STDERR, plus log all DEBUG messages in "Foo::Bar" to a log file". If you
        don't have appenders thresholds, there's no way to prevent cluttering STDERR with DEBUG
        messages.

    *   PatternLayout specifications in accordance with the standard (e.g. "%d{HH:mm}").

    Bottom line: Log::Dispatch::Config is fine for small systems with simple logging requirements.
    However, if you're designing a system with lots of subsystems which you need to control
    independently, you'll love the features of "Log::Log4perl", which is equally easy to use.

Using Log::Log4perl with wrapper functions and classes
    If you don't use "Log::Log4perl" as described above, but from a wrapper function, the pattern
    layout will generate wrong data for %F, %C, %L, and the like. Reason for this is that
    "Log::Log4perl"'s loggers assume a static caller depth to the application that's using them.

    If you're using one (or more) wrapper functions, "Log::Log4perl" will indicate where your logger
    function called the loggers, not where your application called your wrapper:

        use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy);
        Log::Log4perl->easy_init({ level => $DEBUG,
                                   layout => "%M %m%n" });

        sub mylog {
            my($message) = @_;

            DEBUG $message;
        }

        sub func {
            mylog "Hello";
        }

        func();

    prints

        main::mylog Hello

    but that's probably not what your application expects. Rather, you'd want

        main::func Hello

    because the "func" function called your logging function.

    But don't despair, there's a solution: Just register your wrapper package with Log4perl
    beforehand. If Log4perl then finds that it's being called from a registered wrapper, it will
    automatically step up to the next call frame.

        Log::Log4perl->wrapper_register(__PACKAGE__);

        sub mylog {
            my($message) = @_;

            DEBUG $message;
        }

    Alternatively, you can increase the value of the global variable $Log::Log4perl::caller_depth
    (defaults to 0) by one for every wrapper that's in between your application and "Log::Log4perl",
    then "Log::Log4perl" will compensate for the difference:

        sub mylog {
            my($message) = @_;

            local $Log::Log4perl::caller_depth =
                  $Log::Log4perl::caller_depth + 1;
            DEBUG $message;
        }

    Also, note that if you're writing a subclass of Log4perl, like

        package MyL4pWrapper;
        use Log::Log4perl;
        our @ISA = qw(Log::Log4perl);

    and you want to call get_logger() in your code, like

        use MyL4pWrapper;

        sub get_logger {
            my $logger = Log::Log4perl->get_logger();
        }

    then the get_logger() call will get a logger for the "MyL4pWrapper" category, not for the
    package calling the wrapper class as in

        package UserPackage;
        my $logger = MyL4pWrapper->get_logger();

    To have the above call to get_logger return a logger for the "UserPackage" category, you need to
    tell Log4perl that "MyL4pWrapper" is a Log4perl wrapper class:

        use MyL4pWrapper;
        Log::Log4perl->wrapper_register(__PACKAGE__);

        sub get_logger {
              # Now gets a logger for the category of the calling package
            my $logger = Log::Log4perl->get_logger();
        }

    This feature works both for Log4perl-relaying classes like the wrapper described above, and for
    wrappers that inherit from Log4perl use Log4perl's get_logger function via inheritance, alike.

Access to Internals
    The following methods are only of use if you want to peek/poke in the internals of
    Log::Log4perl. Be careful not to disrupt its inner workings.

    "Log::Log4perl->appenders()"
        To find out which appenders are currently defined (not only for a particular logger, but
        overall), a "appenders()" method is available to return a reference to a hash mapping
        appender names to their Log::Log4perl::Appender object references.

Dirty Tricks
    infiltrate_lwp()
        The famous LWP::UserAgent module isn't Log::Log4perl-enabled. Often, though, especially when
        tracing Web-related problems, it would be helpful to get some insight on what's happening
        inside LWP::UserAgent. Ideally, LWP::UserAgent would even play along in the Log::Log4perl
        framework.

        A call to "Log::Log4perl->infiltrate_lwp()" does exactly this. In a very rude way, it pulls
        the rug from under LWP::UserAgent and transforms its "debug/conn" messages into "debug()"
        calls of loggers of the category "LWP::UserAgent". Similarly, "LWP::UserAgent"'s "trace"
        messages are turned into "Log::Log4perl"'s "info()" method calls. Note that this only works
        for LWP::UserAgent versions < 5.822, because this (and probably later) versions miss
        debugging functions entirely.

    Suppressing 'duplicate' LOGDIE messages
        If a script with a simple Log4perl configuration uses logdie() to catch errors and stop
        processing, as in

            use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy) ;
            Log::Log4perl->easy_init($DEBUG);

            shaky_function() or LOGDIE "It failed!";

        there's a cosmetic problem: The message gets printed twice:

            2005/07/10 18:37:14 It failed!
            It failed! at ./t line 12

        The obvious solution is to use LOGEXIT() instead of LOGDIE(), but there's also a special tag
        for Log4perl that suppresses the second message:

            use Log::Log4perl qw(:no_extra_logdie_message);

        This causes logdie() and logcroak() to call exit() instead of die(). To modify the script
        exit code in these occasions, set the variable $Log::Log4perl::LOGEXIT_CODE to the desired
        value, the default is 1.

    Redefine values without causing errors
        Log4perl's configuration file parser has a few basic safety mechanisms to make sure
        configurations are more or less sane.

        One of these safety measures is catching redefined values. For example, if you first write

            log4perl.category = WARN, Logfile

        and then a couple of lines later

            log4perl.category = TRACE, Logfile

        then you might have unintentionally overwritten the first value and Log4perl will die on
        this with an error (suspicious configurations always throw an error). Now, there's a chance
        that this is intentional, for example when you're lumping together several configuration
        files and actually *want* the first value to overwrite the second. In this case use

            use Log::Log4perl qw(:nostrict);

        to put Log4perl in a more permissive mode.

    Prevent croak/confess from stringifying
        The logcroak/logconfess functions stringify their arguments before they pass them to Carp's
        croak/confess functions. This can get in the way if you want to throw an object or a hashref
        as an exception, in this case use:

            $Log::Log4perl::STRINGIFY_DIE_MESSAGE = 0;

            eval {
                  # throws { foo => "bar" }
                  # without stringification
                $logger->logcroak( { foo => "bar" } );
            };

EXAMPLE
    A simple example to cut-and-paste and get started:

        use Log::Log4perl qw(get_logger);

        my $conf = q(
        log4perl.category.Bar.Twix         = WARN, Logfile
        log4perl.appender.Logfile          = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.filename = test.log
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout = \
            Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout
        log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout.ConversionPattern = %d %F{1} %L> %m %n
        );

        Log::Log4perl::init(\$conf);

        my $logger = get_logger("Bar::Twix");
        $logger->error("Blah");

    This will log something like

        2002/09/19 23:48:15 t1 25> Blah

    to the log file "test.log", which Log4perl will append to or create it if it doesn't exist
    already.

INSTALLATION
    If you want to use external appenders provided with "Log::Dispatch", you need to install
    "Log::Dispatch" (2.00 or better) from CPAN, which itself depends on "Attribute-Handlers" and
    "Params-Validate". And a lot of other modules, that's the reason why we're now shipping
    Log::Log4perl with its own standard appenders and only if you wish to use additional ones,
    you'll have to go through the "Log::Dispatch" installation process.

    Log::Log4perl needs "Test::More", "Test::Harness" and "File::Spec", but they already come with
    fairly recent versions of perl. If not, everything's automatically fetched from CPAN if you're
    using the CPAN shell (CPAN.pm), because they're listed as dependencies.

    "Time::HiRes" (1.20 or better) is required only if you need the fine-grained time stamps of the
    %r parameter in "Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout".

    Manual installation works as usual with

        perl Makefile.PL
        make
        make test
        make install

DEVELOPMENT
    Log::Log4perl is still being actively developed. We will always make sure the test suite
    (approx. 500 cases) will pass, but there might still be bugs. please check
    <http://github.com/mschilli/log4perl> for the latest release. The api has reached a mature
    state, we will not change it unless for a good reason.

    Bug reports and feedback are always welcome, just email them to our mailing list shown in the
    AUTHORS section. We're usually addressing them immediately.

REFERENCES
    [1] Michael Schilli, "Retire your debugger, log smartly with Log::Log4perl!", Tutorial on
        perl.com, 09/2002, <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2002/09/11/log4perl.html>

    [2] Ceki Gülcü, "Short introduction to log4j", <http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/manual.html>

    [3] Vipan Singla, "Don't Use System.out.println! Use Log4j.",
        <http://www.vipan.com/htdocs/log4jhelp.html>

    [4] The Log::Log4perl project home page: <http://log4perl.com>

SEE ALSO
    Log::Log4perl::Config, Log::Log4perl::Appender, Log::Log4perl::Layout::PatternLayout,
    Log::Log4perl::Layout::SimpleLayout, Log::Log4perl::Level, Log::Log4perl::JavaMap
    Log::Log4perl::NDC,

AUTHORS
    Please contribute patches to the project on Github:

        http://github.com/mschilli/log4perl

    Send bug reports or requests for enhancements to the authors via our

    MAILING LIST (questions, bug reports, suggestions/patches): log4perl-devel AT lists.net

    Authors (please contact them via the list above, not directly): Mike Schilli
    <m AT perlmeister.com>, Kevin Goess <cpan AT goess.org>

    Contributors (in alphabetical order): Ateeq Altaf, Cory Bennett, Jens Berthold, Jeremy Bopp,
    Hutton Davidson, Chris R. Donnelly, Matisse Enzer, Hugh Esco, Anthony Foiani, James FitzGibbon,
    Carl Franks, Dennis Gregorovic, Andy Grundman, Paul Harrington, Alexander Hartmaier, David Hull,
    Robert Jacobson, Jason Kohles, Jeff Macdonald, Markus Peter, Brett Rann, Peter Rabbitson, Erik
    Selberg, Aaron Straup Cope, Lars Thegler, David Viner, Mac Yang.

LICENSE
    Copyright 2002-2013 by Mike Schilli <m AT perlmeister.com> and Kevin Goess <cpan AT goess.org>.

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as
    Perl itself.