Custom Logger Plug-in

The preferred way to install a custom logger into a communicator is by setting the logger field of the communicator's IntializationData.

However, in some situations, you have no access to InitalizationData, for example:

you are writing an IceBox service
you want to install a custom logger without changing any source code

The plug-in facility allows you to inject your custom logger into the communicator at runtime, during communicator initialization.

Installing a Custom Logger

Ice provides a plug-in class, Ice.LoggerPlugin, that installs a logger into the communicator in its constructor:

C#

namespace Ice;

public class LoggerPlugin : Plugin
{
    public LoggerPlugin(Communicator communicator, Logger logger)
    {
       ...
    }
    
    public void initialize()
    {
    }

    public void destroy()
    {
    }
}

The implementation of initialize and destroy in LoggerPlugin are no-op.

Now, assuming you wrote a CustomLogger class that implements Ice.Logger, you can easily create a plug-in factory that creates a LoggerPlugin and installs your logger into the communicator:

C#

namespace ClearSky;

public class CustomLoggerPluginFactory : Ice.PluginFactory
{
    public string pluginName => "CustomLogger";

    public Ice.Plugin create(
        Ice.Communicator communicator, 
        string name,
        string[] args) =>
        new Ice.LoggerPlugin(communicator, new CustomLogger());
}

Then, package your CustomLogger implementation and CustomLoggerPluginFactory in a .NET assembly, and configure your communicator to load it at runtime. For example:

CODE

Ice.Plugin.CustomLogger=CustomLogger.dll:ClearSky.CustomLoggerPluginFactory

Even though you didn’t implement the plug-in class (Ice.LoggerPlugin), you are in effect creating a new plug-in since you choose the logger given to the LoggerPlugin constructor. As a result, you can pick any name for the plug-in factory and the plug-in itself.

Installing a Custom Logger

See Also