Which Android logging framework to use?

Question

My question seems to be easily answerable, but there are several good solutions. I like to choose the 'best' one.

Available frameworks (feel free to suggest more):

• Androlog
• SLF4J Android
• Log4J - Android

Pros/Cons:

Androlog:

• Pro: Similar to Android logging framework, so there are only small changes in the existing code; Able to send crash reports with more detail in the error report (the logs around the exception); Nice logs
• Con: No standard java "getLogger" approach; Production configuration achievable by uploading property file to sdcard; I need to call init logging manually; Need to create LOG_TAG like constants, or hack it to create log tag constants by Aspect to achieve the standard behavior: tags are the class names; When logging is a business requirement, we need to test it. Testing static calls on Android nearly impossible; Logger can not be injected by framework

Log4J-Android:

• Pro: Standard way to log in Java; Compatible with SLF4J; Able to parse property files;
• Con: No built-in crash report system; Seems to me: its not commonly used, so it might me dangerous to use it;

SLF4J-Android:

• Pro: Seems to be developed by more people like Log4J-Android; The logger.debug("Some log message. Details: {}", someObject.toString()); is a good, and effective way to skip string concatenations if the logger is turned off; lightweight logger binding that delegates to android.util.Log.
• Con: Auto generated log tags that are <= 23 characters long due to a length restriction of log tags on the Android platform (e.g., com.example.myapp.MyClass tag translated to c*.e*.m*.MyClass), which can result in the same log tag for different classes (e.g., com.example.app.MyClass and com.example.anotherapp.MyClass both translate to c*.e*.a*.MyClass); No built in crash reporting system.

Besides of these, I like Androlog behavior, but I'm a Java dev, familiar with log4j/slf4j. We will definitely need crash report system, but there are several frameworks for crash reporting (beside of android default crash report).

I can combine some of them, for example use Log4J android, but create an appender to use the androlog framework, but sooner or later it will be a mess, which should be avoided.

Thanks for your suggestions, I hope the results will help decide others in the future.

Edit: As mentioned below, I can combine for ex: log4j-android with slf4j (whitch I prefer to do if I'll use log4j, because the log formatting support ("{}",...) ), but it does not answers the question. I have to choose a framework, then I can decorate it with the SLF4J facade.

Answer 1

The better way. I think, is to use SLF4J API + some of its implementation.

For Android applications you can use the following:

1. Android Logger is the lightweight but easy-to-configure SLF4J implementation (< 50 Kb).
2. LOGBack is the most powerful and optimized implementation but its size is about 1 Mb.
3. Any other by your taste: slf4jandroid, slf4j-android.