use standard logging

[anarcat]

whipper currently writes its error messages and output all jumbled up together on stdout, through the Program._stdout file handler. This is useful because it could allow some tests to parse the output of the program and verify things are working okay. That is not currently being used however, so it's unclear to me why this construct is present at all - the only test I could find that would use something like this TestAccurateRipReport and it directly hijacks sys.stdout and does not touch directly the Program._stdout handler.

So I would recommend switching to using the logging module. It's standard, well known and expected in Python programs. As a bonus, all messages will be written on stderr (as they should). logfile, syslog and other handlers support becomes trivial to implement as well. The conversion should be easy: just change:

self._stdout.write("foo %s\n", bar)

to:

logging.info("foo %s", bar)

or:

logging.warning....

Depending on the severity level.

How does that sound?

[JoeLametta]

That is not currently being used however, so it's unclear to me why this construct is present at all

I think that instructions are a legacy of whipper's origin: morituri (and early versions of whipper) didn't use the Python logging module. They can be probably converted without regrets... To be sure, let's ask @RecursiveForest and @MerlijnWajer.

[MerlijnWajer]

Sounds good to me if we can get rid of the flog dependency.

[JoeLametta]

@anarcat 👌

[JoeLametta]

/remind me "to review this issue" in 12 hours

[reminders]

@JoeLametta set a reminder for Nov 11th 2018

[anarcat]

🎉