libapa...2::Log(3pm)

📦

version 2.0.13 · 12 versions

💖 NAME 💖

so this is libapa...2::Log(3pm), bestie — the Perl API for Apache logging methods, straight from the User Contributed Perl Documentation corner of the manual. it's called Apache2::Log and it's literally the thing that makes Apache go "hey, here's what happened" 💅

✨ Synopsis ✨

okay so here's the whole vibe in code form, read it like a group chat:

# in startup.pl
#--------------
use Apache2::Log;

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(OK :log);
use APR::Const    -compile => qw(:error SUCCESS);

my $s = Apache2::ServerUtil->server;

$s->log_error("server: log_error");
$s->log_serror(__FILE__, __LINE__, Apache2::Const::LOG_ERR,
               APR::Const::SUCCESS, "log_serror logging at err level");
$s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_DEBUG,
               APR::Const::ENOTIME, "debug print");
Apache2::ServerRec->log_error("routine warning");

Apache2::ServerRec::warn("routine warning");

# in a handler
#-------------
package Foo;

use strict;
use warnings FATAL => 'all';

use Apache2::Log;

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(OK :log);
use APR::Const    -compile => qw(:error SUCCESS);

sub handler {
    my $r = shift;
    $r->log_error("request: log_error");

    my $rlog = $r->log;
    for my $level qw(emerg alert crit error warn notice info debug) {
        no strict 'refs';
        $rlog->$level($package, "request: $level log level");
    }

    # can use server methods as well
    my $s = $r->server;
    $s->log_error("server: log_error");

    $r->log_rerror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_DEBUG,
                   APR::Const::ENOTIME, "in debug");

    $s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_INFO,
                   APR::Const::SUCCESS, "server info");

    $s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_ERR,
                   APR::Const::ENOTIME, "fatal error");

    $r->log_reason("fatal error");
    $r->warn('routine request warning');
    $s->warn('routine server warning');

    return Apache2::Const::OK;
}
1;

# in a registry script
# httpd.conf: PerlOptions +GlobalRequest
use Apache2::ServerRec qw(warn); # override warn locally
print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n";
warn "my warning";

🌸 Description 🌸

Apache2::Log hands you the Perl API for Apache's logging methods. that's the whole job description, and it ate. 👑

okay so here's the tea on LogLevel: depending on whatever the current LogLevel setting is, only logging with the same log level or higher will actually get loaded. like, say your LogLevel is set to warning — then only messages at the warning level or higher (err, crit, elert and emerg) will be logged. so this:

$r->log_rerror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_WARNING,
               APR::Const::ENOTIME, "warning!");

will log the message. but this one is NOT invited to the party:

$r->log_rerror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_INFO,
               APR::Const::ENOTIME, "just an info");

it only gets logged if the server log level is set to info or debug. LogLevel is set in the configuration file, but you can also change it with the $s->loglevel() method. iconic flexibility tbh.

the filename and the line number of the caller get logged only if Apache2::Const::LOG_DEBUG is used (because that's just how the Apache 2.0 logging mechanism works, no notes 💀).

Note: On Win32 Apache attempts to lock all writes to a file whenever it's opened for append (which is the case with logging functions), as Unix has this behavior built-in, while Win32 does not. Therefore Apache2::Log functions could be slower than Perl's print()/warn().

🎀 Constants 🎀

so you can compile all the log level constants at once:

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(:log);

or one at a time, your call bestie:

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(LOG_DEBUG LOG_INFO);

🦋 LogLevel Constants 🦋

these are sorted from the most severe level all the way down to the least severe, and you use them in logging methods to say which log level the message should be logged at:

Apache2::Const::LOG_EMERG
Apache2::Const::LOG_ALERT
Apache2::Const::LOG_CRIT
Apache2::Const::LOG_ERR
Apache2::Const::LOG_WARNING
Apache2::Const::LOG_NOTICE
Apache2::Const::LOG_INFO
Apache2::Const::LOG_DEBUG

🌈 Other Constants 🌈

okay make SURE you compile the APR status constants before you use them, that's non-negotiable. for example, to compile APR::Const::SUCCESS and all the APR error status constants, you do:

use APR::Const    -compile => qw(:error SUCCESS);

here's the rest of the logging related constants:

Apache2::Const::LOG_LEVELMASK — used to mask off the level value, to make sure that the log level's value is within the proper bits range. e.g.:

$loglevel &= LOG_LEVELMASK;

Apache2::Const::LOG_TOCLIENT — used to give content handlers the option of including the error text in the ErrorDocument sent back to the client. When Apache2::Const::LOG_TOCLIENT is passed to log_rerror() the error message will be saved in the $r's notes table, keyed to the string "error-notes", if and only if the severity level of the message is Apache2::Const::LOG_WARNING or greater and there are no other "error-notes" entry already set in the request record's notes table. Once the "error-notes" entry is set, it is up to the error handler to determine whether this text should be sent back to the client. for example:

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(:log);
use APR::Const    -compile => qw(ENOTIME);
$r->log_rerror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK,
               Apache2::Const::LOG_ERR|Apache2::Const::LOG_TOCLIENT,
               APR::Const::ENOTIME,
               "request log_rerror");

and now the log message can be retrieved via:

$r->notes->get("error-notes");

Remember that client-generated text streams sent back to the client MUST be escaped to prevent CSS attacks. like, actually must. do not skip this one, bestie 🙈

Apache2::Const::LOG_STARTUP — is useful for startup message where no timestamps, logging level is wanted. for example:

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(:log);
use APR::Const    -compile => qw(SUCCESS);
$s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK,
               Apache2::Const::LOG_INFO,
               APR::Const::SUCCESS,
               "This log message comes with a header");

will print:

[Wed May 14 16:47:09 2003] [info] This log message comes with a header

whereas, when Apache2::Const::LOG_STARTUP is binary ORed as in:

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(:log);
use APR::Const    -compile => qw(SUCCESS);
$s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK,
               Apache2::Const::LOG_INFO|Apache2::Const::LOG_STARTUP,
               APR::Const::SUCCESS,
               "This log message comes with no header");

then the logging will be:

This log message comes with no header

👑 Server Logging Methods 👑

💅 `$s->log`

get a log handle which can be used to log messages of different levels.

my $slog = $s->log;

obj: $s ( Apache2::ServerRec object )
ret: $slog ( Apache2::Log::Server object )
- Apache2::Log::Server object to be used with LogLevel methods.
since: 2.0.00

🫶 `$s->log_error`

just logs the supplied message to error_log. no frills, it does exactly what it says.

$s->log_error(@message);

obj: $s ( Apache2::ServerRec object )
arg1: @message ( strings ARRAY )
- what to log
ret: no return value
since: 2.0.00

for example:

$s->log_error("running low on memory");

✨ `$s->log_serror`

This function provides a fine control of when the message is logged, gives an access to built-in status codes.

$s->log_serror($file, $line, $level, $status, @message);

obj: $s ( Apache2::ServerRec object )
arg1: $file ( string )
- The file in which this function is called
arg2: $line ( number )
- The line number on which this function is called
arg3: $level ( Apache2::LOG_* constant )
- The level of this error message
arg4: $status ( APR::Const status constant )
- The status code from the last command (similar to $! in perl), usually APR::Const constant or coming from an exception object.
arg5: @message ( strings ARRAY )
- The log message(s)
ret: no return value
since: 2.0.00

for example:

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(:log);
use APR::Const    -compile => qw(ENOTIME SUCCESS);
$s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_ERR,
               APR::Const::SUCCESS, "log_serror logging at err level");

$s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_DEBUG,
               APR::Const::ENOTIME, "debug print");

🧚 `$s->warn`

$s->warn(@warnings);

is the same as:

$s->log_serror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_WARNING,
               APR::Const::SUCCESS, @warnings)

obj: $s ( Apache2::ServerRec object )
arg1: @warnings ( strings ARRAY )
- array of warning strings
ret: no return value
since: 2.0.00

for example:

$s->warn('routine server warning');

🌸 `$r->log` 🌸

get a log handle which can be used to log messages of different levels.

$rlog = $r->log;

obj: $r ( Apache2::RequestRec object )
ret: $rlog ( Apache2::Log::Request object ) — an Apache2::Log::Request object to be used with LogLevel methods.
since: 2.0.00

✨ `$r->log_error` ✨

just logs the supplied message (similar to $s->log_error ).

$r->log_error(@message);

obj: $r ( Apache2::RequestRec object )
arg1: @message ( strings ARRAY ) — what to log
ret: no return value
since: 2.0.00

For example:

$r->log_error("the request is about to end");

💅 `$r->log_reason` 💅

This function provides a convenient way to log errors in a preformatted way:

$r->log_reason($message);
$r->log_reason($message, $filename);

obj: $r ( Apache2::RequestRec object )
arg1: $message ( string ) — the message to log
opt arg2: $filename ( string ) — where to report the error as coming from (e.g. "__FILE__")
ret: no return value
since: 2.0.00

For example:

$r->log_reason("There is no enough data");

will generate a log entry similar to the following:

[Fri Sep 24 11:58:36 2004] [error] access to /someuri
failed for 127.0.0.1, reason: There is no enough data.

🔥 `$r->log_rerror` 🔥

This function provides a fine control of when the message is logged, gives an access to built-in status codes.

$r->log_rerror($file, $line, $level, $status, @message);

arguments are identical to $s->log_serror.

since: 2.0.00

For example:

use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(:log);
use APR::Const    -compile => qw(ENOTIME SUCCESS);
$r->log_rerror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_ERR,
               APR::Const::SUCCESS, "log_rerror logging at err level");

$r->log_rerror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_DEBUG,
               APR::Const::ENOTIME, "debug print");

🦋 `$r->warn` 🦋

$r->warn(@warnings);

is the same as:

$r->log_rerror(Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK, Apache2::Const::LOG_WARNING,
               APR::Const::SUCCESS, @warnings)

obj: $r ( Apache2::RequestRec object )
arg1: @warnings ( strings ARRAY ) — array of warning strings
ret: no return value
since: 2.0.00

For example:

$r->warn('routine server warning');

🌈 Other Logging Methods 🌈

🎀 LogLevel Methods 🎀

after getting the log handle with $s->log or $r->log, use one of the following methods (corresponding to the LogLevel levels):

emerg(), alert(), crit(), error(), warn(), notice(), info(), debug()

to control when messages should be logged:

$s->log->emerg(@message);
$r->log->emerg(@message);

obj: $slog ( server or request log handle )
arg1: @message ( strings ARRAY )
ret: no return value
since: 2.0.00

For example if the LogLevel is error and the following code is executed:

my $slog = $s->log;
$slog->debug("just ", "some debug info");
$slog->warn(@warnings);
$slog->crit("dying");

only the last command's logging will be performed. This is because warn, debug and other logging command which are listed right to error will be disabled.

🫶 `alert`

See LogLevel Methods.

💜 `crit`

See LogLevel Methods.

🌸 `debug`

See LogLevel Methods.

⭐ `emerg`

See LogLevel Methods.

💖 `error`

See LogLevel Methods.

🧚 `info`

See LogLevel Methods.

👑 `notice`

See LogLevel Methods.

Though Apache treats notice() calls as special. The message is always logged regardless the value of ErrorLog, unless the error log is set to use syslog. (For details see httpd-2.0/server/log.c.)

🍓 `warn`

See LogLevel Methods.

✨ General Functions ✨

💫 `LOG_MARK`

Though looking like a constant, this is a function, which returns a list of two items: (__FILE__, __LINE__), i.e. the file and the line where the function was called from.

my ($file, $line) = Apache2::Log::LOG_MARK();

ret1: $file ( string )
ret2: $line ( number )
since: 2.0.00

It's mostly useful to be passed as the first argument to those logging methods, expecting the filename and the line number as the first arguments (e.g., $s->log_serror and $r->log_rerror ).

🏠 Virtual Hosts 🏠

Code running from within a virtual host needs to be able to log into its ErrorLog file, if different from the main log. Calling any of the logging methods on the $r and $s objects will do the logging correctly.

If the core warn() is called, it'll be always logged to the main log file. Here is how to make it log into the vhost error_log file. Let's say that we start with the following code:

warn "the code is smoking";

First, we need to use mod_perl's logging function, instead of CORE::warn

Either replace warn with Apache2::ServerRec::warn:

use Apache2::Log ();
Apache2::ServerRec::warn("the code is smoking");

or import it into your code:

use Apache2::ServerRec qw(warn); # override warn locally
warn "the code is smoking";

or override CORE::warn:

use Apache2::Log ();
*CORE::GLOBAL::warn = \&Apache2::ServerRec::warn;
warn "the code is smoking";

Avoid using the latter suggestion, since it'll affect all the code running on the server, which may break things. Of course you can localize that as well:

use Apache2::Log ();
local *CORE::GLOBAL::warn = \&Apache2::ServerRec::warn;
warn "the code is smoking";

Chances are that you need to make the internal Perl warnings go into the vhost's error_log file as well. Here is how to do that:

use Apache2::Log ();
local $SIG{__WARN__} = \&Apache2::ServerRec::warn;
eval q[my $x = "aaa" + 1;]; # this issues a warning

Notice that it'll override any previous setting you may have had, disabling modules like CGI::Carp which also use $SIG{__WARN__}.

Next we need to figure out how to get hold of the vhost's server object.

Inside HTTP request handlers this is possible via Apache2->request. Which requires either PerlOptions +GlobalRequest setting or can be also done at runtime if $r is available:

use Apache2::RequestUtil ();
sub handler {
    my $r = shift;
    Apache2::RequestUtil->request($r);
    ...

Outside HTTP handlers at the moment it is not possible, to get hold of the vhost's error_log file. This shouldn't be a problem for the code that runs only under mod_perl, since the always available $s object can invoke a plethora of methods supplied by Apache2::Log. This is only a problem for modules, which are supposed to run outside mod_perl as well.

META: To solve this we think to introduce 'PerlOptions +GlobalServer', a big brother for 'PerlOptions +GlobalRequest', which will be set in modperl_hook_pre_connection.

🙈 Unsupported API 🙈

Apache2::Log also provides auto-generated Perl interface for a few other methods which aren't tested at the moment and therefore their API is a subject to change. These methods will be finalized later as a need arises. If you want to rely on any of the following methods please contact the the mod_perl development mailing list so we can help each other take the steps necessary to shift the method to an officially supported API.

💀 `log_pid`

META: what is this method good for? it just calls getpid and logs it. In any case it has nothing to do with the logging API. And it uses static variables, it probably shouldn't be in the Apache public API.

Log the current pid

Apache2::Log::log_pid($pool, $fname);

obj: $p ( APR::Pool object ) — The pool to use for logging
arg1: $fname ( file path ) — The name of the file to log to
ret: no return value
since: subject to change

🌟 See Also 🌟

mod_perl 2.0 documentation.

📜 Copyright 📜

mod_perl 2.0 and its core modules are copyrighted under The Apache Software License, Version 2.0.

🫶 Authors 🫶

The mod_perl development team and numerous contributors.

and that's the whole page bestie, we ate and left no crumbs 💅✨ this lovely lil' manual dropped as perl v5.42.3 on 2026-08-20, filed under libapa...2::Log(3pm) — go forth and log responsibly, mwah 🎀🦋

📦 where this page comes from

ubuntu stonking: libapache2-mod-perl2 2.0.13-2build3 · Apache-2.0
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-11-03: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

libapa...2::Log(3pm)

💖 NAME 💖

✨ Synopsis ✨

🌸 Description 🌸

🎀 Constants 🎀

🦋 LogLevel Constants 🦋

🌈 Other Constants 🌈

👑 Server Logging Methods 👑

💅 $s->log

🫶 $s->log_error

✨ $s->log_serror

🧚 $s->warn

🌸 $r->log 🌸

✨ $r->log_error ✨

💅 $r->log_reason 💅

🔥 $r->log_rerror 🔥

🦋 $r->warn 🦋

🌈 Other Logging Methods 🌈

🎀 LogLevel Methods 🎀

🫶 alert

💜 crit

🌸 debug

⭐ emerg

💖 error

🧚 info

👑 notice

🍓 warn

✨ General Functions ✨

💫 LOG_MARK

🏠 Virtual Hosts 🏠

🙈 Unsupported API 🙈

💀 log_pid

🌟 See Also 🌟

📜 Copyright 📜

🫶 Authors 🫶

💅 `$s->log`

🫶 `$s->log_error`

✨ `$s->log_serror`

🧚 `$s->warn`

🌸 `$r->log` 🌸

✨ `$r->log_error` ✨

💅 `$r->log_reason` 💅

🔥 `$r->log_rerror` 🔥

🦋 `$r->warn` 🦋

🫶 `alert`

💜 `crit`

🌸 `debug`

⭐ `emerg`

💖 `error`

🧚 `info`

👑 `notice`

🍓 `warn`

💫 `LOG_MARK`

💀 `log_pid`