refactor: logging: Various API improvements #34806

ajtowns commented at 4:45 PM on March 11, 2026: contributor

ShrinkDebugFile now takes the logging mutex for its entire run; though it's only called in init so shouldn't have any races in the first place.

Adds a NO_RATE_LIMIT tag that can be used with info/warning/error logs to avoid rate-limiting. This allows LogPrintLevel_ to be restricted to being an internal API.

The GetLogCategory function is moved out of the global namespace.

ShouldLog is split into separate ShouldDebugLog and ShouldTraceLog so that filtering checks are somewhat more enforced via function signature checks.

Redundant LogAcceptCategory function is removed.

More files are pointed at util/log.h instead of logging.h.

DrahtBot added the label Refactoring on Mar 11, 2026

DrahtBot commented at 4:46 PM on March 11, 2026: contributor

The following sections might be updated with supplementary metadata relevant to reviewers and maintainers.

Reviews

See the guideline for information on the review process. A summary of reviews will appear here.

Conflicts

Reviewers, this pull request conflicts with the following ones:

#35084 (ipc: Support for windows support by ryanofsky)
#35043 (refactor: Properly return from ThreadSafeQuestion signal + btcsignals follow-ups by maflcko)
#35040 (Remove CNode dependency for local address functions and introduce LocalAddressManager by theuni)
#35011 (ci, iwyu: Fix warnings in src/script and treat them as errors by BrandonOdiwuor)
#34865 (logging: better use of log::Entry internally by stickies-v)
#34778 (logging: rewrite macros to add ratelimit option, avoid unused strprintf, clarify confusing errors by ryanofsky)
#34730 (util/log: Combine the warning/error log levels into a single alert level by ajtowns)
#34641 (node: scale default -dbcache with system RAM by l0rinc)
#34603 (wallet: Fix detection of symlinks on Windows by achow101)
#34514 (refactor: remove unnecessary std::move for trivially copyable types by l0rinc)
#34435 (refactor: use _MiB/_GiB consistently for byte conversions by l0rinc)
#34038 (logging: replace -loglevel with -trace, expose trace logging via RPC by ajtowns)
#33922 (mining: add getMemoryLoad() and track template non-mempool memory footprint by Sjors)
#33727 (zmq: Log bind error at Error level, abort startup on init error by isrod)
#33421 (node: add BlockTemplateCache by ismaelsadeeq)
#33117 (Interfaces: Expose UTXO Snapshot Loading and Add Progress Notifications by D33r-Gee)
#32387 (ipc: add windows support by ryanofsky)
#30343 (wallet, logging: Replace WalletLogPrintf() with LogInfo() by ryanofsky)
#29256 (log, refactor: Allow log macros to accept context arguments by ryanofsky)

If you consider this pull request important, please also help to review the conflicting pull requests. Ideally, start with the one that should be merged first.

LLM Linter (✨ experimental)

Possible typos and grammar issues:

ratelimiting -> rate limiting [“ratelimiting” in the comment appears misspelled; it should be “rate limiting” for clarity.]

ajtowns commented at 5:08 PM on March 11, 2026: contributor

Split off from #34038

DrahtBot added the label Needs rebase on Mar 20, 2026

ajtowns force-pushed on Mar 20, 2026

DrahtBot removed the label Needs rebase on Mar 20, 2026

ajtowns force-pushed on Mar 24, 2026

DrahtBot added the label Needs rebase on Mar 31, 2026

ajtowns force-pushed on Apr 2, 2026

DrahtBot removed the label Needs rebase on Apr 2, 2026

DrahtBot added the label Needs rebase on Apr 9, 2026

util/stdmutex: Drop StdLockGuard f622414486

logging: Protect ShrinkDebugFile by m_cs

We should not be logging while shrinking the debug file, so make sure
that's true by using our mutex.

c98810a4e6

util/log: Provide util::log::NO_RATE_LIMIT to avoid rate limits f99e9e69b5

util/log: Rename LogPrintLevel_ into detail_ namespace

After the previous commit, LogPrintLevel_ is only used to implement
other macros.

155f8c9fb3

logging: Move GetLogCategory into Logger class 6c076b82ca

util/log, logging: Provide ShouldDebugLog and ShouldTraceLog instead of a generic ShouldLog 722bd6dba7

scripted-diff: logging: Drop LogAcceptCategory

-BEGIN VERIFY SCRIPT-
sed -i 's/LogAcceptCategory(\(.*\), [a-zA-Z:]*::Level::Debug)/util::log::ShouldDebugLog(\1)/g' $(git grep -l LogAcceptCategory -- '*.cpp')
sed -i 's/LogAcceptCategory(\(.*\), [a-zA-Z:]*::Level::Trace)/util::log::ShouldTraceLog(\1)/g' $(git grep -l LogAcceptCategory -- '*.cpp')
sed -i '/Return true if log accepts specified category/,/^$/d' src/logging.h
-END VERIFY SCRIPT-

89eafa0983

IWYU fixes

Add missing includes of logging.h in preparation for the next commit,
switching to util/log.h. Also removes some unnecessary util/check.h
includes that CI complains about.

dab1393b9f

logging: use util/log.h where possible

Replace usage of logging.h with util/log.h where it
suffices.

91f35ea257

ajtowns force-pushed on Apr 9, 2026

DrahtBot removed the label Needs rebase on Apr 9, 2026