On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Alun wrote:
> But... quickly looking at the source code, I can't see why this isn't easily
> done. Admittedly I've not gone into it in detail, but couldn't the "open_log"
> function do the string expansions on log_file_path every time it's called and
> the "log_write" function always close the file afterwards if there's a dollar
> sign in log_file_path?
That sounds to be to highly inefficient, and likely to cause grumbles
about performance degradation.
> For most people, with log_file_path set to something not needing
> expansion, there would be almost no overhead. For people with
> expansions, there would be a whole pile of extra file open/close calls
> (and, Marc, I have worries about how much extra load this would cause
> on a busy system).
Precisely.
> Am I missing something, or is it just a matter of some fairly simple code
> changes?
I think there's a "bigger picture" to consider. One of the items on the
WishList is a way of interposing some kind of user-supplied logic for
each log line - so that it can be suppressed, extended, or whatever.
Such a scheme would could allow for writing it somewhere else, hopefully
in a more efficient manner.
At present, to do this processing you have to tail the main log, but
this *is* possible, so those who want it can do it. I don't believe
there are vast numbers of users who require this, however.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
Get the Exim 4 book: http://www.uit.co.uk/exim-book
