Logging patterns

There are but a few important logging patterns you can utilize to try to minimize the logging overhead implied, without any benefit from a functional point of view. Let's go through the most common ones.

Testing your level

The most important thing about a log message is its level. It is the information allowing you to efficiently ignore the messages - and their formatting/templating - if they will be ignored later anyway.

For instance, take this method that relies on loggers at different levels:

public void save(long id, Quote quote) {
    logger.finest("Value: " + quote);
    String hexValue = converter.toHexString(id);
    doSave(id, quote);
    logger.info("Saved: " + hexValue);
   ...