                            Log::LogLite
                            Log::NullLogLite

  Copyright (c) 2001-2002 Ockham Technology N.V. & Rani Pinchuk.  
  All rights reserved.  
  This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or 
  modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

DESCRIPTION
  
  The Log::LogLite class helps us create simple logs for our
  application. The Lite suffix refers mainly to the ease of use of
  this class, although the class is quite simple anyway.

  Example for the use of the class:

    use Log::LogLite;
    my $LOG_DIRECTORY = "/where/ever/our/log/file/should/be";
    my $ERROR_LOG_LEVEL = 6;

    # create new Log::LogLite object
    my $log = new Log::LogLite($LOG_DIRECTORY."/error.log", $ERROR_LOG_LEVEL);

    ...

    # we had an error
    $log->write("Could not open the file ".$file_name.": $!", 4);

  The line that is added to the log file might look like:
    [09/02/2001 13:02:07] <4> Could not open the file bla: no such file

  The Log::NullLogLiteThe class is derived from the `Log::LogLite'
  class and implement the Null Object pattern to let us to use the
  `Log::LogLite' class with null `Log::LogLite' objects.  We might
  want to do that if we use a `Log::LogLite' object in our code, and
  we do not want always to actually define a `Log::LogLite' object
  (i.e. not always we want to write to a log file). In such a case we
  will create a `Log::NullLogLite' object instead of the
  `Log::LogLite' object, and will use that object instead.  The object
  has all the methods that the `Log::LogLite' object has, but those
  methods do nothing. Thus our code will continue to run without any
  change, yet we will not have to define a log file path for the
  `Log::LogLite' object, and no log will be created.  

PREREQUISITES

  IO::LockedFile 

INSTALLATION

  Follow the standard installation procedure for Perl modules, which is to
  type the following commands:

          perl Makefile.PL
          make
          make test
          make install

  You'll probably need to do the last as root.  

AUTHOR NOTES

  Thess classes are used for quite a long time in our company.
  Yet, it is very new in CPAN. If there are problems, suggestions 
  or comments - please email me.

Rani Pinchuk
rani@cpan.org




