How to introduce logging with actors

Logging is the best way to debug an application for errors and information. In this recipe, we will look at how to introduce logging with actors. There are third-party libraries that provide logging to an application, such as sl4jLogger. In Akka, logging is not tied to a particular API, but we will go with ActorLogging, provided by Akka.

Getting ready

To step through this recipe, we do not require any other API dependencies; just import the Hello-Akka project in the IDE.

How to do it…

1. Create a file, say, Logging.scala, in the com.packt.chapter5 package.
2. Add the following import to the file:

        import akka.actor.{Props, ActorSystem, ActorLogging, Actor}

3. Create an actor, as follows, that uses logging:

        class LoggingActor extends Actor with ActorLogging {
          def receive = {
            case (a: Int, b: Int) => {
              log.info(s"sum of $a and $b is ${a + b}")
            }
            case msg => log.warning(s"i don't know what are...