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pantheios - README==================
Updated: 7th August 2012
See the introduction in the accompanying doc/html/1.0.1-beta214/index.htmlfile.
Please feel free to request, nay demand, improvements in any areasthat you feel are deficient. We believe that Pantheios is the bestdiagnostic logging API ever created, but we are not so deluded as to thinkthat our presentational skills are as good. Criticism will be gratefullyreceived.
If you are interested in commercial services and/or training forPantheios, contact Synesis Software, via http://synesis.com.au/contact.html
Information about Pantheios training is available athttp://synesis.com.au/training.html
10 important things to know about Pantheios:--------------------------------------------
1. It's a diagnostic logging **API** library, not a diagnostic logging library
2. It's open-source, and 100% free
3. It depends on several other libraries, but they're also open source and 100% free
4. It's incredibly efficient, and is faster than all other serious C++ diagnostic logging libraries by a huge margin (up to two orders of magnitude)
5. It is 100% type-safe
6. Selection of logging transport (i.e. "back-end(s)") is done at link-time, for very good reason
7. It's highly extensible
8. It's being used by serious commercial enterprises, including very high throughput financial systems
9. It's highly portable - including most C++ compilers and most/all flavours of UNIX, Linux, Mac OS-X and Windows
10. Pantheios is under active development from a highly motivated team, who have the ambition that it will become the diagnostic logging API of choice for all C++ programmers who wish to have performance without sacrificing robustness or flexibility; the team want to hear from you how they can better achieve these aims
Details:- - - -
1. It's a diagnostic logging **API** library, not a diagnostic logging library
The Pantheios architecture is split into four parts: - Application Layer - you use this to create diagnostic logging statements in your application code - Core - this is what ties it all together. Apart from initialising the core (which happens automatically in C++ compilation units), you don't need to do anything with the core - Front-end - this is what decides which statements are written out, as well as providing the application identity (name) to the Core during initialisation. There are several stock Front-ends included in the Pantheios distribution, but you may well implement your own - Back-end - this is what emits the logging statement (if the front-end allows it to be written) to the outside world. There are a number of stock Back-ends included in the Pantheios distribution, but you may well implement your own
One criticism that we sometimes get from new users goes along the lines of
" the performance is brilliant, but you don't have all the features of log4cxx "
We know. It's designed to be that way.
Pantheios is a diagnostic logging API library. The interaction between Application Layer, Core and Front-end means that nothing else can come anywhere near Pantheios in terms of performance, type-safety or extensibility. But it's specifically designed for you to use it _above_ existing logging libraries that have more features. To do so, you can write a simple back-end to wrap, say, log4cxx, and plug it in at link-time. That way you get all the performance and safety of Pantheios, with the rich feature set of log4cxx. It's win-win!
2. It's open-source, and 100% free
It uses the widely appreciated (modified-)BSD license.
3. It depends on several other libraries, but they're also open source and 100% free
Apart from one library - STLSoft - all the libraries on which Pantheios depends are bundled with the Pantheios distribution. These libraries are:
- xTests (see http://xtests.org/) A simple, lightweight unit-/component-testing libary for C and C++ This library is used only in the unit-/component-testing
- b64 (see http://synesis.com.au/software/b64.html) A simple, exceedingly lightweight implementation of the Base-64 encoding This library is used by the pantheios::b64 inserter class
- shwild (see http://shwild.org/)
An implementation (UNIX) shell compatible wildcards. This library is used only in the unit-/component-testing
The other library on which Pantheios depends is STLSoft (see http://stlsoft.org). STLSoft is *not* an STL replacement, it is an STL extension library. Additionally, it provides a number of system and compiler discrimination features that Pantheios uses to simplify its implementation
4. It's incredibly efficient, and is faster than all other serious C++ diagnostic logging libraries by a huge margin (up to two orders of magnitude)
See http://pantheios.sourceforge.net/performance.html#sweet-spot if you don't believe us
5. It is 100% type-safe
... unlike any diagnostic logging library built on C's Streams or C++'s IOStreams libraries.
6. Selection of logging transport (i.e. "back-end(s)") is done at link-time, for very good reason
The reason is simple: a diagnostic logging library must be available whenever _any_ part of the application code needs it. In C++, it's possible to execute a significant amount of functionality during dynamic initialisation, so we cannot afford to wait for main() to set up the logging.
The consequence of this is Pantheios' only hard-to-use aspect, that of setting up the linking. There are several tutorials available for this purpose in the documentation
7. It's highly extensible
Pantheios ships with a number of stock transports (known as "back-end(s)"), including console, Syslog, COM Error Object, speech, Windows Debugger, Windows Event Log. You can extend the range with a custom back-end by implementing a very simple C-API. The details are in the documentation.
By default, the Pantheios Application Layer understands a large range of string types (and types that can be meaningfully converted into strings, such as struct tm, FILETIME, struct in_addr, and so on). Pantheios allows you to infinitely extend the range of types that may be incorporated into logging statements in your application code. There is an extensive tutorial on this in the documentation.
8. It's being used by serious commercial enterprises, including very high throughput financial systems
Pantheios is in use by companies in Australia, US, and throughout the world. One notable user in New York contacted Synesis Software (see http://synesis.com.au/) in Dec 2007 to design and implement custom front-/back-ends to enhance the performance to an insane degree - not one processor cycle is wasted - because they believe that their systems will need to produce more diagnostic logging output than any other softare system in history.
An NDA prevents us from naming the client, their business, or the nature of the customisations, but we can say that they're delighted with the system's performance and reliability. They said that Pantheios operates with "clock-cycle speed"!
9. It's highly portable - including most C++ compilers and most/all flavours of UNIX, Linux, Mac OS-X and Windows
Pantheios has been tested on a wide range of C++ compilers, and a reasonable range of operating systems. In UNIX flavours, there are no platform-specific constructs used. Any new compiler/platform will require a minimum of enhancement to the STLSoft configuration. The development team are always happy to help/advise any such user.
10. Pantheios is under active development from a highly motivated team, who have the ambition that it will become the diagnostic logging API of choice for all C++ programmers who wish to have performance without sacrificing robustness or flexibility; the team want to hear from you how they can better achieve these aims
That pretty much says it all. We know it's the best concept based on the best theory, and we're keen to help make it work well for all users everywhere.
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