Following the Great Relogging activity that took place recently, a revised format for logging in Java code is established as follows:

1. Logging.LOGGING compile-time flag has been removed. Do not use it.

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2. The logger should always be named log.

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3. org.apache.log4j.Category is deprecated in favor of org.apache.log4j.Logger. Example:
   private static final Category log = Logging.LOGGING ? Category.getInstance(POD.class) : null;
   is replaced with
   private static final Logger log = Logger.getLogger(POD.class);

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4. A class should never add “implements Logging” to its declaration statement.

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5. The following new runtime logging level checks are available:
   log.isFatalEnabled() // currently unused
log.isErrorEnabled()
log.isWarnEnabled()
log.isInfoEnabled()
log.isDebugEnabled()
log.isTraceEnabled() // currently unused
   Example:
   if (log.isInfoEnabled())
{
    log.info("restoreRecordings: Storage not ready - deferring load of recording database");
}
   Please note that curly braces are required around the log.info(...); call. The following should not be used:
   if (log.isInfoEnabled())
    log.info("restoreRecordings: Storage not ready - deferring load of recording database");
   or
   if (log.isInfoEnabled()) log.info("restoreRecordings: Storage not ready - deferring load of recording database");

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6. Every single log message should have an if (log.isXXXEnabled()) check, even where there are two consecutive log messages in the source. Example:
   if (log.isDebugEnabled()
{
    log.debug("Destroy called. Ok.");
}
if (log.isDebugEnabled()
{
    log.debug("Received Tuning Over failed event");
}
   The following should not be used:
   if (log.isDebugEnabled()
{
    log.debug("Destroy called. Ok.");
    log.debug("Received Tuning Over failed event");
}

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7. Mixing business logic with logging level checks should be avoided. Example:
   if (low)
{
    if (log.isWarnEnabled())
    {
        log.warn("VM memory low even after reclamation");
    }
   }
   The following should not be used:
   if (log.isWarnEnabled() && low)
{
    log.warn("VM memory low even after reclamation");
}

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8. Also, please note that the business logic checks should be nested outside rather than inside of the logging statements. Using the previous example, the following should not be used:
   if (log.isWarnEnabled())
{
    if (low)
    {
        log.warn("VM memory low even after reclamation");
    }
   }

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9. Do not use inherited loggers. Don't make a logger protected in a parent class and use that logger from a subclass. Every class that needs to log should just have its own logger.

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10. Any logging-specific logic that is not part of the actual log call should also be wrapped in a log level check.

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11. In the future, we should use 'trace' where we are tempted to add a boolean to control debug level loggin with more granularity.

For reference, here is the link to our coding guidelines. Refer to section 2.4: Logging Guidelines.