Name: rmT116609 Date: 11/12/2003


A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
Currently, if the Logging APIs force the developer to prefix all of their calls to log.<whatever> (i.e., log(), info(), config(), etc) with a test to determine if the request log level is currently active if they wish to avoid unncecessary String allocation. For example:

 if (log.isLoggable(Level.FINE))
    log.fine("Some trace msg: x="+x+" y="+y);

JUSTIFICATION :
Unnecessary allocation of strings increases runtime memory footprint and may require more cycles to be spent on GC. Code is also considerably less readable.



EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
It would greatly improve code readability and improve the runtime footprint of the application if the compiler and/or the runtime environment was smart about calls to the Logging APIs and would essentially insert the conditional test code during compilation. This way, a developer could simply write:

 log.fine("Some trace msg: x="+x+" y="+y);

and not worry about having to protect the call when the specified logging level was not active.
ACTUAL -
Currently, if a developer does not do the test, the runtime environment dutifully creates all the strings whether or not they are ever logged.
(Incident Review ID: 225336)
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