What are the best practices to log an error?

Question

Many times I saw logging of errors like these:

System.out.println(\"Method aMethod with parameters a:\"+a+\" b: \"+b);
print(\"Error in line 88\");
         


        

Answer 1

Some suggested best-practices

• Use a logging framework. This will allow you to:

  • Easily change the destination of your log messages
  • Filter log messages based on severity
  • Support internationalised log messages

• If you are using java, then slf4j is now preferred to Jakarta commons logging as the logging facade.

• As stated slf4j is a facade, and you have to then pick an underlying implementation. Either log4j, java.util.logging, or 'simple'.

• Follow your framework's advice to ensuring expensive logging operations are not needlessly carried out