About function names

[WurmPeter]

What always confuses me: there are functions beginning with "log" that don't cause a logging action, but somehow change the logging behaviour.

Functions that actually log:

- log_level()
- log_fatal()
- log_error()
- log_warn()
- log_success()
- log_info()
- log_debug()
- log_trace()
- log_eval()
- log_failure()
- log_tictoc()
- log_separator()
- log_with_separator()

Functions that don't log, but change logger's behaviour:

- log_threshold()
- log_appender()
- log_formatter()
- log_layout()
- log_messages()
- log_warnings()
- log_errors()
- logger()
- delete_logger_index()

Helpers:

- with_log_threshold()
- log_shiny_input_changes()
- get_logger_meta_variables()
- log_namespaces()
- log_indices()
- ...

I know it's a bit late to change anything and breaks the API, but out of curiosity: Wouldn't the function names be more understandable if those that change logging behaviour would be prefixed with "logger_"? So

- logger()
- logger_threshold()
- logger_appender()
- logger_formatter()
- logger_layout()
- logger_messages()
- logger_warnings()
- logger_errors()
- logger_delete_index()
- logger_get_meta_variables()
- logger_get_namespaces()
- logger_get_indices()

Or is it just me?

[daroczig]

Hmm, good question. I don't feel super comfortable about the suggested naming schema, but I understand that the old design might be confusing. Let's collect feedback here from the community and take it from there.

[thomasp85]

I tend to agree that the current situation is confusing. FWIW we have at time taken the plunge and renamed poorly named functions in tidyverse using a very lenient deprecation period. My suggestion would be to have clearly market getter and setter functions for global state

- logger_set_threshold()
- logger_set_appender()
- logger_set_formatter()
- logger_set_layout()
- logger_get_meta_variables()
- logger_get_namespaces()
- logger_get_indices()
- logger_delete_index()

I would also go for logger_create() rather than logger() as it is a bit unclear from the name what it does

lastly I could see a family of hook functions:

- logger_hook_errors()
- logger_hook_warnings()
- logger_hook_messages()
- logger_hook_shiny_input()