[Perl-workflow-devel] Log4perl logging and condition evaluation

[Andrew O'B. <an...@or...>]

Hi guys,

Can someone explain the reasoning behind throwing a workflow_error()
when conditions evaluate to false? workflow_error() logs at ERROR level.


Currently, a condition class with an evaluate() method must call
condition_error() in order to signal that the condition has not been
met.

That propagates to a workflow_error() call in
Workflow::State::evaluate_action() any time that a condition evaluates
to false. This is caught in Workflow::State::is_action_available() and
simply used as a boolean.

This, in turn, fills up logs rather more quickly than I'd like. I just
can't understand why the simple act of a condition evaluating to false
(which happens potentially hundreds of times a second and is a perfectly
normal thing for a condition to do) needs to be promoted to this log
level.

You're basically saying that a condition evaluating to false is just one
level of criticality lower than "FATAL" :)

As a comparison, a successful condition evaluation is simply logged at
DEBUG level and no exception is rethrown (I can understand throwing an
exception, just not one that has the side effect of logging at ERROR
level)

Is this just me? Is there some other side effect of this rethrow
sequence that I'm missing?

Cheers,

Andrew