Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized - Synchronizing other appenders use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy); my $conf = qq( log4perl.category = WARN, Syncer # File appender (unsynchronized) log4perl.appender.Logfile = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File log4perl.appender.Logfile.autoflush = 1 log4perl.appender.Logfile.filename = test.log log4perl.appender.Logfile.mode = truncate log4perl.appender.Logfile.layout = SimpleLayout # Synchronizing appender, using the file appender above log4perl.appender.Syncer = Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized log4perl.appender.Syncer.appender = Logfile ); Log::Log4perl->init(\$conf); WARN("This message is guaranteed to be complete."); If multiple processes are using the same "Log::Log4perl" appender without synchronization, overwrites might happen. A typical scenario for this would be a process spawning children, each of which inherits the parent's Log::Log4perl configuration. Usually, you should avoid this scenario and have each child have its own Log::Log4perl configuration, ensuring that each e.g. writes to a different logfile. In cases where you need additional synchronization, however, use "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" as a gateway between your loggers and your appenders. An appender itself, "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" just takes two additional arguments: Specifies the name of the appender it synchronizes access to. The appender specified must be defined somewhere in the configuration file, not necessarily before the definition of "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized". This optional argument specifies the key for the semaphore that "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" uses internally to ensure atomic operations. It defaults to "_l4p". If you define more than one "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" appender, it is important to specify different keys for them, as otherwise every new "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" appender will nuke previously defined semaphores. The maximum key length is four characters, longer keys will be truncated to 4 characters -- "mylongkey1" and "mylongkey2" are interpreted to be the same: "mylo" (thanks to David Viner <dviner@yahoo-inc.com> for pointing this out). "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" uses "IPC::Shareable" internally to perform locking with semaphores provided by the operating system used.

Performance tips
The "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" serializes access to a protected resource globally, slowing down actions otherwise performed in parallel. Unless specified otherwise, all instances of "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" objects in the system will use the same global IPC key "_l4p". To control access to different appender instances, it often makes sense to define different keys for different synchronizing appenders. In this way, Log::Log4perl serializes access to each appender instance separately: log4perl.category = WARN, Syncer1, Syncer2 # File appender 1 (unsynchronized) log4perl.appender.Logfile1 = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File log4perl.appender.Logfile1.filename = test1.log log4perl.appender.Logfile1.layout = SimpleLayout # File appender 2 (unsynchronized) log4perl.appender.Logfile2 = Log::Log4perl::Appender::File log4perl.appender.Logfile2.filename = test2.log log4perl.appender.Logfile2.layout = SimpleLayout # Synchronizing appender, using the file appender above log4perl.appender.Syncer1 = Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized log4perl.appender.Syncer1.appender = Logfile1 log4perl.appender.Syncer1.key = l4p1 # Synchronizing appender, using the file appender above log4perl.appender.Syncer2 = Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized log4perl.appender.Syncer2.appender = Logfile2 log4perl.appender.Syncer2.key = l4p2 Without the ".key = l4p1" and ".key = l4p2" lines, both Synchronized appenders would be using the default "_l4p" key, causing unnecessary serialization of output written to different files. "Log::Log4perl::Appender::Synchronized" is a composite appender. Unlike other appenders, it doesn't log any messages, it just passes them on to its attached sub-appender. For this reason, it doesn't need a layout (contrary to regular appenders). If it defines none, messages are passed on unaltered. Custom filters are also applied to the composite appender only. They are not applied to the sub-appender. Same applies to appender thresholds. This behaviour might change in the future. Copyright 2003 by Mike Schilli, all rights reserved. This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. 2003, Mike Schilli <m@perlmeister.com>