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pythonloggingpyramid

Optimizing Python logging code

I have a Python application written on the Pyramid framework.

We really take advantage of logging on this ( for debugging ) , using the standard import library.

As we profile stuff on production, it seems that there is quite a bit of overhead from our logging activity. All the string formatting and loops add up. I'd love to remove it, but we can't -- we do actually need to keep it in for testing and will sometimes need to debug on the production environment.

I'm wondering if anyone has effective strategies for minimizing logging as needed , so this code could get "optimized away" during execution on our production environment and simply not run .

For example, under mod_perl, the compiler would "optimize away" statements run under False constants

in psuedocode... ( i haven't touched perl in a long time! )

use constant DEBUG => False ;
if ( DEBUG ) {
      log.debug("stuff here " + string );
}

or

use constant DEBUG => False ;
DEBUG && log.debug("stuff here " + string );

Under those scenarios, the call to log.debug and even the string interpolation would never happen.

Can anyone recommend an effective method of mimicking that behavior under Python ?

Solution

  • Use __debug__. This flag is set to False when Python is run with the -O command line flag, and Python will furthermore optimize out debug code at compile time. I wrote a blog post on it a couple months ago.