MacPorts Base: Support for a lower level of debug output, like ui_trace, or ui_debug2/ui_debug3?

[Rainer Müller]

On 24/05/2021 17.13, Christopher Nielsen wrote:
> Has there been any thoughts/interest in implementing another level (or two) of debug output, providing more detail than we get at Debug? That would allow us to optionally output more diagnostic info in various areas, such as our portgroups, without flooding the logs when running at our present Debug level.
> 
> I’ve found this extremely helpful in the various projects I’ve worked on over the years. And it would certainly benefit us too.
> 
> In many of the common logging frameworks, such a level is sometimes called Trace. That terminology might be confusing within MacPorts, given that we support trace mode. So perhaps we would want to name it differently. (Debug2 and Debug3?)
> 
> But naming aside, has anyone else considered the general idea? Thoughts?

I would see it from another perspective. Why skip verbose mode and go
straight to debug mode? If more information is regularly required,
shouldn't we instead move more log messages to verbose mode instead of
hiding them in the debug log only?

Rainer