Log4j's debug level makes difference?

hunj · **Joined:** Mon Sep 08, 2003 12:51 am **Posts:** 19

Hi All,

I met a strange problem. My program only runs well when I use "debug" level of log4j. While I close "debug" option, it could not work. I wonder who ever met this?

I use hibernate 2.1.2.

Thanks,

Jun Huang

stolley · **Posted:** Thu Apr 29, 2004 7:34 pm

Two words: side effects.

Code like this:

Code:

if( log.isDebugEnabled() ){
  log.debug("size of collection: " + parent.getChildren().size());
}

Or objects that looks like this, that are subsequently used in a debug statement:

Code:

public class SideEffectObject{
...
public void toString(){
  this.internalState = "something";
  return super.toString()+internalState;
}

behave differently when debug is on/off.

Whenever somebody says "it's broken/works only when debug is on/off", in Java, it's always wither a side effect like one of the above or a race condition. And it's usually a side effect related issue.

Hibernate is subtle, especially when you have proxies and lazy collections flying around.
The issue is probably a side effect and is probably in your code rather than in the Hibernate code. Isolate the issue and then trace it in a debugger.