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Python allows logging to be used in several ways. What are the relative merits of these two approaches to Logging when Unit Testing with Python? Is one approach superior or does each approach suit specific circumstances? What are those circumstances and how might each approach be improved?

Directly addressing the logger.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import logging

import unittest



class LoggingTest(unittest.TestCase):



    logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)



    def test_logger(self):

        logging.info("logging.info test_logger")

        pass

Getting a logger by name

#!/usr/bin/env python

import logging

import unittest



class GetLoggerTest(unittest.TestCase):

    logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

    logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)



    def test_logger(self):

        self.logger.info("self.logger.info test_logger")

        pass

According to the logging docs:

The logger name hierarchy is analogous to the Python package hierarchy, and identical to it if you organise your loggers on a per-module basis using the recommended construction logging.getLogger(__name__). That’s because in a module, __name__ is the module’s name in the Python package namespace.

Based on my experience, I would say that you should always use logging.getLogger(__name__) for bigger projects, as it'll make logging modularization easier.

As your question is broad, I recommend you to read the Logging Cookbook, in this link, as it holds many important use cases in which you could optimize the way you use logging.

It's also possible to mix both cases in order to add a timestamp, in example, which is an improved way of using this module:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import logging

import unittest



class GetLoggerTest(unittest.TestCase):

    logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

    logging.basicConfig(format = '%(asctime)s %(module)s %(levelname)s: %(message)s',

                    datefmt = '%m/%d/%Y %I:%M:%S %p', level = logging.INFO)



    def test_logger(self):

        self.logger.info("self.logger.info test_logger")

        pass