class QLoggingCategory

The QLoggingCategory class represents a category, or ‘area’ in the logging infrastructure. More

Synopsis

Methods

Static functions

Note

This documentation may contain snippets that were automatically translated from C++ to Python. We always welcome contributions to the snippet translation. If you see an issue with the translation, you can also let us know by creating a ticket on https:/bugreports.qt.io/projects/PYSIDE

Detailed Description

Warning

This section contains snippets that were automatically translated from C++ to Python and may contain errors.

QLoggingCategory represents a certain logging category - identified by a string - at runtime. A category can be configured to enable or disable logging of messages per message type. An exception are fatal messages, which are always enabled.

To check whether a message type is enabled or not, use one of these methods: isDebugEnabled() , isInfoEnabled() , isWarningEnabled() , and isCriticalEnabled() .

All objects are meant to be configured by a common registry, as described in Configuring Categories . Different objects can also represent the same category. Therefore, it’s not recommended to export objects across module boundaries, to manipulate the objects directly, or to inherit from QLoggingCategory .

Creating Category Objects

The Q_DECLARE_LOGGING_CATEGORY() and Q_LOGGING_CATEGORY() macros conveniently declare and create QLoggingCategory objects:

# in a header
Q_DECLARE_LOGGING_CATEGORY(driverUsb)
# in one source file
Q_LOGGING_CATEGORY(driverUsb, "driver.usb")

There is also the Q_DECLARE_EXPORTED_LOGGING_CATEGORY() macro in order to use a logging category across library boundaries.

Category names are free text; to configure categories using Logging Rules , their names should follow this convention:

  • Use letters and numbers only.

  • Use dots to further structure categories into common areas.

  • Avoid the category names: debug, info, warning, and critical.

  • Category names with the qt prefix are solely reserved for Qt modules.

QLoggingCategory objects that are implicitly defined by Q_LOGGING_CATEGORY() are created on first use, in a thread-safe manner.

Checking Category Configuration

QLoggingCategory provides isDebugEnabled() , isInfoEnabled() , isWarningEnabled() , isCriticalEnabled() , as well as isEnabled() to check whether messages for the given message type should be logged.

The qCDebug() , qCWarning() , and qCCritical() macros prevent arguments from being evaluated if the respective message types are not enabled for the category, so explicit checking is not needed:

# usbEntries() will only be called if driverUsb category is enabled
qCDebug(driverUsb) << "devices: " << usbEntries()

Default Category Configuration

Both the QLoggingCategory constructor and the Q_LOGGING_CATEGORY() macro accept an optional QtMsgType argument, which disables all message types with a lower severity. That is, a category declared with

Q_LOGGING_CATEGORY(driverUsbEvents, "driver.usb.events", QtWarningMsg)

logs messages of type QtWarningMsg, QtCriticalMsg, QtFatalMsg, but ignores messages of type QtDebugMsg and QtInfoMsg.

If no argument is passed, all messages are logged. Only Qt internal categories which start with qt are handled differently: For these, only messages of type QtInfoMsg, QtWarningMsg, QtCriticalMsg, and QFatalMsg are logged by default.

Note

Logging categories are not affected by your C++ build configuration. That is, whether messages are printed does not change depending on whether the code is compiled with debug symbols (‘Debug Build’), optimizations (‘Release Build’), or some other combination.

Configuring Categories

You can override the default configuration for categories either by setting logging rules, or by installing a custom filter.

Logging Rules

Logging rules let you enable or disable logging for categories in a flexible way. Rules are specified in text, where every line must have the format:

<category>[.<type>] = True|False

<category> is the name of the category, potentially with * as a wildcard symbol for the first or last character; or at both positions. The optional <type> must be debug, info, warning, or critical. Lines that don’t fit this scheme are ignored.

Rules are evaluated in text order, from first to last. That is, if two rules apply to a category/type, the rule that comes later is applied.

Rules can be set via setFilterRules() :

QLoggingCategory.setFilterRules("*.debug=False\n"
                                 "driver.usb.debug=True")

Logging rules are automatically loaded from the [Rules] section in a logging configuration file. These configuration files are looked up in the QtProject configuration directory, or explicitly set in a QT_LOGGING_CONF environment variable:

[Rules]
*.debug=False
driver.usb.debug=True

Logging rules can also be specified in a QT_LOGGING_RULES environment variable; multiple rules can also be separated by semicolons:

QT_LOGGING_RULES=*.debug=False;driver.usb.debug=True

Rules set by setFilterRules() take precedence over rules specified in the QtProject configuration directory. In turn, these rules can be overwritten by those from the configuration file specified by QT_LOGGING_CONF, and those set by QT_LOGGING_RULES.

The order of evaluation is as follows:

  1. [ DataPath ]/qtlogging.ini

  2. QtProject/qtlogging.ini

  3. setFilterRules()

  4. QT_LOGGING_CONF

  5. QT_LOGGING_RULES

The QtProject/qtlogging.ini file is looked up in all directories returned by GenericConfigLocation .

Set the QT_LOGGING_DEBUG environment variable to find out where your logging rules are loaded from.

Installing a Custom Filter

As a lower-level alternative to the text rules, you can also implement a custom filter via installFilter() . All filter rules are ignored in this case.

Printing the Category

Use the %{category} placeholder to print the category in the default message handler:

qSetMessagePattern("%{category} %{message}")
__init__(category[, severityLevel=QtDebugMsg])
Parameters:
  • category – str

  • severityLevelQtMsgType

Constructs a QLoggingCategory object with the provided category name, and enables all messages with types at least as verbose as enableForLevel, which defaults to QtDebugMsg (which enables all categories).

If category is None, the category name "default" is used.

Note

category must be kept valid during the lifetime of this object. Using a string literal for it is the usual way to achieve this.

categoryName()
Return type:

str

Returns the name of the category.

static defaultCategory()
Return type:

QLoggingCategory

Returns a pointer to the global category "default" that is used, for example, by qDebug() , qInfo() , qWarning() , qCritical() , or qFatal() .

Note

The pointer returned may be null during destruction of static objects. Also, don’t delete this pointer, as ownership of the category isn’t transferred.

isCriticalEnabled()
Return type:

bool

Returns true if critical messages should be shown for this category; false otherwise.

Note

The qCCritical() macro already does this check before executing any code. However, calling this method may be useful to avoid the expensive generation of data for debug output only.

isDebugEnabled()
Return type:

bool

Returns true if debug messages should be shown for this category; false otherwise.

Note

The qCDebug() macro already does this check before running any code. However, calling this method may be useful to avoid the expensive generation of data for debug output only.

isEnabled(type)
Parameters:

typeQtMsgType

Return type:

bool

Returns true if a message of type msgtype for the category should be shown; false otherwise.

isInfoEnabled()
Return type:

bool

Returns true if informational messages should be shown for this category; false otherwise.

Note

The qCInfo() macro already does this check before executing any code. However, calling this method may be useful to avoid the expensive generation of data for debug output only.

isWarningEnabled()
Return type:

bool

Returns true if warning messages should be shown for this category; false otherwise.

Note

The qCWarning() macro already does this check before executing any code. However, calling this method may be useful to avoid the expensive generation of data for debug output only.

__call__()
Return type:

QLoggingCategory

Returns the object itself. This allows for both: a QLoggingCategory variable, and a factory method that returns a QLoggingCategory , to be used in qCDebug() , qCWarning() , qCCritical() , or qCFatal() macros.

setEnabled(type, enable)
Parameters:

Changes the message type type for the category to enable.

This method is meant for use only from inside a filter installed with installFilter() . For an overview on how to configure categories globally, see Configuring Categories .

Note

QtFatalMsg cannot be changed; it will always remain true.

See also

isEnabled()

static setFilterRules(rules)
Parameters:

rules – str

Warning

This section contains snippets that were automatically translated from C++ to Python and may contain errors.

Configures which categories and message types should be enabled through a set of rules.

Example:

QLoggingCategory.setFilterRules("driver.usb.debug=True")

Note

The rules might be ignored if a custom category filter is installed with installFilter() , or if the user has defined the QT_LOGGING_CONF or the QT_LOGGING_RULES environment variable.